


most people get married

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Accidental Relationship, F/M, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Green Card Marriage, Marriage of Convenience, Pretending To Be Married, Team Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 71,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her heart was pounding in her chest. All she needed to do was say the words. It was just a possible solution to a crisis; it wasn’t as if she’d knocked him out and dragged him all the way to the altar. <i>How hard could it be?</i></p><p>“They would leave you alone if we got married.”</p><p>Lane stared at her in complete shock, one hand now braced against the low back of her blue chair, his mouth open, eyes wide, and a blotchy flush creeping up from under his collar. “What?”</p><p>Joan felt heat rise in her face, but sat straighter in her chair. She cleared her throat, and kept her voice level. “We could get married. So you could stay.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Joan sat in the back booth of an out of the way Midtown diner, fiddled with an unopened sugar packet as she waited for her tea to arrive, and tried to force herself to breathe normally. It was just lunch, she told herself. Almost a month had passed since the incident; they were just trying to talk outside of work, keep things light.

_She’d walked into Lane’s office at the end of the day, carrying a single sheet of paper: the last page of a ream of company checks from 1966, which she’d personally canceled. At the time, Lane had claimed he lost the page, but she’d accidentally found it this morning in a manila envelope living in the bottom of the file cabinet. Stuffed behind the Zs. Still crisp._

_When she’d put the sheet onto his desk, her hands shaking slightly, Lane had gone very quiet, and had refused to look at her. She knew why. Six checks and carbon receipts, all blank except for the last one—personally made out to Lane for eight thousand dollars. Two partner signatures, and dated just before Christmas of that year._

_He’d never cashed it._

_But why had Don signed it? Why would Lane have written it?_

_“Just tell me the truth,” she said first, and promptly started crying._

Lane cleared his throat, breaking her out of her reverie as he folded his coat, put it down onto the booth, and slid into his seat. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be late. Ginsberg had some, er, receipts that he couldn’t…sort out.”

“It’s okay.” Joan put the sugar packet aside. She couldn’t help studying his face. He looked horrible. “Are you sleeping at all?”

Lane looked confused.

She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “You look exhausted.”

“Oh.” He seemed determined not to look at her. “Well, it’s…fine.”

Jesus. She was afraid of that.

“They’re bringing hot water,” she told him instead, “and milk, so we should have tea in a minute.”

“Oh. Erm. Thank you.” He was studying his menu very carefully.

Thirty minutes later, it was going a little better. They were at least talking in complete sentences.

“Is this why you didn’t come back right away?” Joan pushed food around her untouched plate with her fork; just looking at it was making her feel sick. Her stomach felt like it was gripped in a vice. She should have just gotten dry toast. “I thought you’d just held out for more money, or something. Everybody did.”

“It wasn’t some...drunken impulse.” Lane wasn’t eating, either, just kept nibbling at the same soggy French fry over and over, like it was habit. His expression was clouded. “Don was right to—to—fire me.”

“But you came back. And he never said anything.”

“I don’t, erm, think he’s really thought about it, to be honest. You’ve seen him. He’s not in any condition to…he looks like he can hardly get out of bed.”

Lane shook his head, as if already sorrowful.

Joan swiped under her eyes with the edges of two fingers, wishing for the thousandth time that he had confided in her. That night, they’d sat in his little office for hours in the dark, both of them crying, Joan asking question after question, Lane chalk-white and shaking as he answered them in halting sentences, and when she went home she’d ended up bursting into sobs in the shower at one in the morning.

_His voice wavered as he spoke. “I couldn’t go back. I, I burned those bridges, once we started this company, and, and everything we’ve worked for is—is here. My life is here. I sacrificed—everything. All of it. I—couldn't let it have been f-for nothing.”_

_"You could have gotten another job."_

_Lane's expression was fraught with stress. "Not—this job."_

“Anyway. Inland Revenue got it all in—in the end,” Lane was still talking. She forced herself to stay focused. “I did sign the IRS agreement, and INS will—they’ll just have to see that.”

“Will?” she asked sharply. Her stomach twisted again, and she dropped her fork into her plate with a clatter. “Lane, are they still after you?”

The look in his eyes was answer enough.

“Oh, god,” she whispered, too horrified to censor herself.

He set his jaw in a way that meant he was very worried, eyes flashing behind his thick glasses. “It’ll—everything’s—fine. They haven’t, erm, scheduled any hearings, or—or anything. It’s just about the—the taxes.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers. _Jesus_. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want you to worry,” he said quickly—he keeps telling her this, like she wouldn’t be worried enough after everything they’ve been through over the past two years. After Don ruined the IPO, and after the stupid merger, Lane had focused on long-term investments until she’d moved to accounts. Then he’d taken back short-term finances, spending his days fighting with Cutler and Pete and trying to strategize with her and Dawn and Mr. Cooper in turns.

She knows she still works too much, but at least she can go home at the end of a long day, see her son, and get a hot meal, plus a few hours of sleep. Who else is going to look out for Lane if Joan doesn’t do it? _Meredith?_ His ex-wife? His brother? Who else does he have, except her?

“I’ve _been_ worried!” she said, and then pursed her mouth to get control of herself. _Lower your voice._ “I’m not going to sit on my heels, then show up one day to find out you’re gone. I won’t do that.”

_The day Lane got fired, she’d stormed into Don’s office in a rage: flung the door open and walked in without so much as a word to Dawn or Caroline. She’d marched right up to the sofa, where Don sat staring at her, and slapped him across the face. He grunted, and his cheek burned red with the impact, but he didn’t even say anything. He just squeezed his eyes closed and traced his fingertips over the edge of the fading handprint welt, like it had really hurt, but he deserved it. He didn't even speak._

_“What the hell did you do?" she shouted. "What’s wrong with you?!”_

_“Joan!” Someone else from the hallway had shouted at her, but Joan just stumbled backwards, already close to tears, and had stormed out of the room, her head held high and her jaw clenched to prove that she was not going to let this stand._

“Joan?”

She blinked, and glanced up at Lane, who looked worried about her, of all things. “I’m sorry. What?”

He held her gaze. “You can’t—solve this for me.”

“I know,” she said automatically, picking up her mug just as the tiniest insidious thought took root in her head. _People get married for green cards._

“You have already done—far too much, and I—”

Her eyes widened slightly as she continued to think, but she didn’t let herself look away. _If we—he could stay in the country. Uncle Sam would ease the tax burden here, because he’d be legal, and Inland Revenue would have to stop chasing him, because he’d be naturalized._

“—already tried—everything—and I don’t want you to spend—”

_Nigel would still be English. Lane might not want citizenship if it separated him from his son. He might not even want citizenship at all._

_(But he would get to stay here.)_

Joan realized he was no longer speaking, and quickly returned her attention to him, although he was fiddling with the handle of his spoon. When Lane realized she was watching him, he let out a sigh, then met her eyes, and tried to soften his expression. He still looked very tense, especially around the jaw.

“You seem disappointed.”

“No. It’s not that. I’m just—I’m just thinking,” she said, and quickly put down her mug to hide the fact that her hands were trembling.

**

She spent three Saturdays in the library looking up relevant information, and even brought Kevin along, so she wouldn’t get any grief from her mother about working weekends. The young librarians did a children’s activity from ten to twelve, so Joan had two solid hours to browse the stacks, select books, and make photocopies of pertinent pages.

On that first Friday, she called a Midtown law firm under her maiden name, and had a brief phone consultation about New York’s marriage and residency laws.

“ _Okay, Mrs. Holloway. And your fiancé is from where? Europe?”_

_“Great Britain,” Joan explained, injecting a fond note into her voice. “Been here four years. He just loves it.”_

_“Well, if you’re waiting to get married for any reason, he could delay another year and apply for naturalization on his own with a standard N-400. Otherwise, once your certificate is filed, you’d submit the relevant paperwork along with an I-130 – that’s petition for family – while he’d submit an I-485. Adjustment status claim.”_

_He’ll also need your affidavit of support as his financial sponsor for naturalization – that’s an I-895 – and an I-695, sealed and filled out by a registered Civil Surgeon. Just like he did for the alien registration card.”_

_She’d scribbled down notes in shorthand on an old legal pad until her hand started cramping, putting this and all the other papers in a worn red manila folder she'd found among her files, and hadn’t even bothered to label._

_“Will he need a form to travel abroad, while things are being processed? His son still lives in England.”_

_"An I-131, sure. It doesn’t hurt.”_

_“What happens once they receive the claims?”_

_The lawyer was cheerful. “Usually, if the paperwork's complete, there’s an interview with an INS agent once they process the forms, and maybe a follow-up. But if you two’ve been together for a few years, I wouldn’t worry. They’re just checking to make sure nobody’s breaking the rules. Overall, it usually takes around a few months to a year and change, depending on when you file your paperwork.”_

_“Excellent,” Joan said, pressing the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Does your office have copies of those forms that I could pick up? I’ll pay for a full consultation, if necessary.”_

_“We can set that up, if you like. I’ll put a set of forms out front with Deborah.”_

Along with the key petitions, they’d both need their birth certificates, divorce certificates, photographs, Kevin’s (and Nigel’s?) birth certificates, Lane’s green card – which, apparently, wasn’t green? – and his alien registration information, along with up to three years’ worth of tax and finance information for both parties.

Plus, a marriage certificate.

Her red file folder grew to bursting, but on top of all of this, she still had to work. She was attending pitches for Avon and Ocean Spray and Topaz and struggling through meetings and trying to make time for her family—and all she could think about was this ridiculous, impulsive, idiotic idea she’d concocted.

_You can’t solve this for me._

_Fine._ Joan couldn’t solve this problem alone, but if Lane was willing to take the risk, then they could solve it together. A few months would be easy. A few months was practically nothing.

She and Lane were taking tea in her office late on a Wednesday afternoon when Joan decided to seize her chance, watching that enormous red file folder burn holes through the two others it was buried beneath.

As she pulled the thick file from the stack and placed it between them on her desk, Lane’s eyes widened in alarm. She could see the change in his posture all the way from where he was standing, over by her coffee table. He looked like he was scared to ask which account it was for, although he still walked closer, brow furrowed in confusion.

“What on earth is _that?_ ”

Joan should have taken him to dinner in order to gauge his interest in this idea, or poured a drink—paved the road somehow—but at this point, all of her senses were focused on not stumbling over her next few sentences. She had to present a logical case to him. It couldn’t only be about his feelings, or their friendship, or the business. He had to believe that they were both going to gain something tangible from this plan in order to agree to it.

Her voice, when she spoke, was clear and strong. “I know you said you didn’t want my help, but I’ve been researching a potential solution to your legal situation. It’s risky, but manageable, and would be relatively painless, as far as claims are concerned.”

Lane opened and shut his mouth without words, as if he had no idea where to begin, letting out a huff. “This is the size of a—a federal dossier.” The growing frown on his face said he was either aggravated or impressed by her research, but he still reached out a tentative hand, brushing the worn cover of the folder like it would tell him what it contained just by touching it.

She swallowed the lump of anxiety that threatened to rise in her throat. Her heart was pounding in her chest. All she needed to do was say the words. It was just a possible solution to a crisis; it wasn’t as if she’d knocked him out and dragged him all the way to the altar. It's a simple proposal.  _How hard could it be?_

“They would leave you alone if we got married.”

Lane yanked his hand back so quickly he accidentally knocked her outbox into the floor. The plastic tray squealed angrily as it smacked against the tile, and her papers spilled everywhere. He was staring at her in complete shock, one hand now braced against the low back of her blue chair, mouth open, eyes wide, and a blotchy flush creeping up from under his collar.

“What?”

Joan felt heat rise in her face, but sat straighter in her chair. She cleared her throat, and kept her voice level. “We could get married. So you could stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, another AU! I've been itching to write a green card or marriage of convenience fic for these two for a long time, and this weekend, the idea finally solidified. Title taken from [a 1962 Patti Page song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnVuvaPP1U8) of the same name. I'm thinking it'll have four to five chapters, maybe six if we go long.


	2. Chapter 2

From her seat on the sofa, Joan privately decided Lane was going to wear a hole in the tile by the time he calmed down and stopped pacing. Which, judging by his current speed, would probably be a couple of years from now.

“I don’t—you have gone—utterly, utterly mad!”

He kept saying that word.

“You’ve been a permanent resident for almost five years.” Joan took a sip from her rocks glass. She’d ended up pouring drinks for both of them, although he hadn’t even touched his, he was so agitated. “If we got married—”

His voice actually cracked when he spoke. “ _Stop saying that._ ”

“Your case would be very strong. Even with the tax hiccups, you’re an entrepreneur with significant capital investments—”

“What—possible reason compelled you to—to—?”

“—you’ve made no secret of the fact that you like living here, and as for the personal side of things—”

He didn’t let her speak over him this time. “I _specifically_ told you not to interfere!”

“You told me I couldn’t solve this problem _for_ you, and I haven’t,” Joan said, drawing out the words so she didn’t end up raising her voice. “I’m presenting a solution that you haven’t considered. You don’t have to say yes.”

Lane choked out a noise that wasn’t really a laugh, and finally turned to look at her. He was sweating a little; she could see how dewy his skin was at the temples and around the back of his collar. His color was still very high. “Well, of course I don’t! Because it is folly!”

“Why?” Joan raised an eyebrow, flipping the folder open and gesturing toward it with an open hand. “We’re both divorced. We spend a significant amount of time together here and outside of work—time that could easily be excused away to some government bureaucrat—”

“It is not that simple!” Lane set his jaw as if to stop himself from screaming, and then spoke through gritted teeth. “For god’s sake—you—we do not have the type of knowledge that would be required to pass such an examination.”

“What could they possibly ask us?” She took another sip of her drink. “They’ll want to know about how we met, the details of any—courtship period—our families, and our future plans. All of which we’ll discuss before the interview. It’s not like we’re strangers.”

“You can’t even say the word _courtship_ without flinching,” Lane snapped. “We would be found out in moments! And then I’ll be banned from applying!”

Oh, good god, he really was panicking. She held out her hand, motioning for him to come over. “Will you at least sit down?”

With a resentful look, he strode over to the sofa, sat down heavily, and reached out for the glass on the table. He knocked back his drink in a single gulp, and then sank back into the cushions. After half a second of reclining, he leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees and putting his head in his hands.

“Are you all right?” Joan asked quietly.

He let out an aggravated noise. She took another drink.

“I know it seems outlandish, but it would only take a few months, maybe a little over a year—”

“What will you get from this…arrangement, should it even occur?”

She felt her heart stutter in her chest. Oh, my god. He wouldn’t have asked that question unless he was starting to consider it.

Lane kept talking, stuttering over the words. “I don’t—you would not commit to such an idea without—no one would do this for nothing. What will you gain?”

She knew he was going to bring that up. It can’t be a favor between friends, some debt he can never repay. Lane does not like a red ledger. It has to represent equal prospects for both of them. Luckily, she knows exactly what she’d want from this little setup.

Joan set her glass onto the table, watching Lane carefully. He was still hunched forward, staring at the floor. “I want Greg to sign away his paternal rights.”

Lane glanced up at her now, eyes narrowed and intent. She knows he understands what that kind of security would mean to her. Although, honestly, it’s her own fault for putting Greg’s name on the birth certificate.

She continued talking. “I have been repeatedly informed that the courts won’t grant that motion unless I marry again.”

“I—I understand that you don’t…” Lane took a breath, seeming more comfortable at the idea of discussing her specific problem, as opposed to the elephant in the room. “Well, I know there’s no alimony.”

“No, there is not,” Joan confirmed. Not even a penny.

“And he never—have they even met?”

“Once,” she told him, remembering Greg’s last leave, and how hard she’d worked to make it perfect, how it had all been for nothing. “And they probably spent less than six hours together. He just…didn’t give a damn. He barely even held him.”

The expression on Lane’s face was unreadable.

She shrugged, keeping her voice light. “We’d both benefit from this, from a legal perspective. That’s all I’m saying.”

He sat still for a second longer before jumping to his feet again. “What you are suggesting is a significant commitment—a covenant—and you say we’re to—you do not know what you are asking.”

“I’m asking you to consider it,” Joan said, carefully not engaging on the word _covenant._ Of course it wouldn’t be a traditional marriage, for god’s sake. She didn’t realize he was taking that aspect so seriously. “It’s not ideal, but I think it’s a better option than letting you get deported.”

“I’m not getting _deported_ ,” Lane answered immediately, but there was no heat in his reply, like he wasn’t sure if he really believed it.

She pressed on. “We wouldn’t even have to live together. Just—take the papers. Look through them, and think about it. If you want, we can meet with the lawyer together, before you decide.”

“You—you phoned a lawyer?”

Apparently this was the revelation that finally got Lane to stop pacing. He had paused mid-stride, mouth open in horror.

“Do you really want to try doing this without a professional?” Joan countered, forcing herself to stay calm. Don’t yell. “I didn’t give him our names. Just an outline of the situation.”

He fell silent, and shifted on his feet, staring at the red folder that was still open on top of her desk.

“I—I just—don’t know. I can't. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Joan said, holding two hands in the air as if in surrender. “That’s fine. It’s just a suggestion.”

**

In the elevator on the way up to the lawyer’s office, Joan tucked a stray piece of hair behind her left ear with one hand. The movement drew Lane’s attention, and he sucked in an audible breath. “You’re—you’re wearing a ring.”

Joan made an amused noise. It was the same engagement diamond Greg got her; the one she showed off for years. Lane was acting like he’d never seen it before. “You know, technically, we’re engaged.”

Lane made a noise that said they absolutely were not, but the doors opened to the lobby before he could actually argue this point. Joan summoned up a polite smile as they approached the reception desk. Here, a young black girl with long, curled hair, green cat’s-eye glasses, and a caramel complexion sat writing down a long list, her pen flying over the pad of paper as she listened.

Joan approached the desk, keeping her voice low as she raised a hand to get the woman’s attention. “We have an appointment with Mr. Fisher. Joan Holloway.”

“Okay, thanks, Crystal. I’ll call back.” The young woman hung up the phone and gave them an apologetic look, waving them forward as she got to her feet. “Please, come right this way.”

They followed her through the glass doors and down a long yellow hallway to a small seating area opposite a secretary’s desk. It was all decorated sparsely, like a futuristic hotel. “Mr. Fisher should be with you in a moment. Is there anything I can get for you, while you wait?”

Lane spoke very quickly. “No, erm. Thank you.”

“We’re fine,” Joan said, and so the secretary smiled at them, and disappeared around the corner.

After a couple minutes of flipping through new copies of _Time_ and _Newsweek_ and trying not to glance at each other, the door to the lawyer’s office opened, and a young, WASP-y-looking couple reminiscent of the Campbells stepped out, quickly followed by the man himself. He was taller than Joan had imagined, dark hair greying at the temples, pale complexion—a little plump—and wearing blue trousers, a white collared shirt, and a yellow tie.

“Mrs. Holloway,” he said as he walked over. “Buck Fisher. It’s a pleasure.”

“Actually, it’s Mrs. Harris,” Joan said, with a sidelong glance at Lane, who looked like he was about to protest everything from the name mixup to the entire charade. “Holloway was my maiden name.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that.” The lawyer shook hands with Joan, and then with Lane. “How you doing, sir. What did you say your name was?”

“Sorry, it’s, er, Lane. Pryce. Nice to meet you.”

“My fiancé,” Joan supplied.

The tips of Lane’s ears turned a little red as they glanced at each other for a second, but the lawyer didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness as he waved them back into his office.

She’d have to practice saying that word. It was too odd.

Once they’d begun examining the files, Mr. Fisher wasn’t quite as jovial. He leafed through documents slowly, and made a few offhand comments as he read.

“Jeez. Inland Revenue really takes people to town. No wonder the Beatles complained.”

He put the Xerox of Lane’s 1967 tax return aside, then flipped to the next page. Lane had given her copies of a few documents this morning; she hadn’t even had a chance to read them before their trip over. Just getting him to bring them was difficult enough.

“Ah ha. I was about to ask if this was your first petition, but I see you tried to file an I-526 a few years back.”

“Yes, well.” Lane shifted in his seat as if he was expecting the lawyer to start pulling out his fingernails with every new question. “You see how that concluded.”

“Honestly, I’m not surprised. Whoever you hired should’ve told you that usually doesn’t work, unless your investment creates at least ten full-time jobs, or constitutes forty percent of the business capital.”

Lane was frowning. “Oh, well, I didn’t—hire anyone to—I did it, erm, myself.”

Jesus. Had Lane already been turned down once? “When was this?”

Lane was fiddling with his glasses, which he held in one hand. He let out a sigh before he spoke, staring down at the lenses. “Lee Garner, Jr.”

Oh, god, all the Lucky Strike panic. Well, that made sense. She shook her head. “Forty percent is ridiculous. It should be based proportionally on income.”

“Hard for those petitions to go through unless you’re the next Conrad Hilton,” Mr. Fisher told her.

Although the lawyer didn’t know the inside joke, Joan couldn’t help smiling a little, and glanced at Lane to see if he had shared in the humor. No dice.

“So, Mr. Fisher, what would we have to do to file a family petition?”

“Please. Call me Buck.” Mr. Fisher pushed his half-moon glasses up onto his head. “You’ve already got most of the paperwork right here, although he’d need the marriage certificate, both of your complete financials, and the information on his child support to supplement it.” He turned to Lane. “You and your ex on good terms?”

Lane was staring at a brass ship figure that sat near the right side edge of the man’s desk, and glanced up in alarm when he realized they were both staring at him. “What?”

“He asked about Rebecca,” Joan filled in, not sure if he’d heard. “If you still talk.”

A muscle was jumping in Lane’s jaw. She tried not to look too curious. As a rule, they didn’t discuss the former Mrs. Pryce, not unless she’d done something completely beyond the pale. “Erm. Barely.”

“Okay,” Buck said. “Well, if your son lives with her, then you’ll have to file documents that prove you’ve been paying child support. Sometimes this means a notarized letter from the ex, if you’re cordial, but in most cases, providing receipts and cancelled checks can be enough.”

Joan was already writing this down into the margin of her own notes. “That would be much simpler. He keeps detailed records.”

She realized it might sound odd to keep referring to themselves as separate parties in this petition, since they were supposed to be engaged. _We_ keep detailed records. _We_ don’t talk to Rebecca.

“Any reason you two are waiting to marry?”

“Oh,” Joan began, glancing at Lane and reaching out to pat his hand. He was so rigid with stress that his fingers practically flexed with fear when she touched him. “Well, to be honest—”

Lane pulled his hand away, not unkindly, and jumped to his feet. “Sorry, I—I need a moment.”

He rushed out of the room almost as fast as his feet could carry him, the door swinging closed in his wake. Joan tried not to seem annoyed, just gave the lawyer an apologetic look. The lawyer met her gaze with a raised eyebrow.

“You want to go after him?”

Joan shook her head no. If he didn’t come back in a few minutes, she’d go looking for him, but until then, getting some time alone probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Let him cool off; come back with a clearer head. “I’m sorry. He finds the whole situation very stressful.”

Understatement of the year.

“Ah, I’ve seen worse.” The lawyer was reading through papers again. “Good for you, getting him in here.”

Time to ask the difficult question. “So. What do you think?”

He pulled his glasses back down onto his nose, looking less casual. “Honey, if it was my fiancé on the line, I’d move fast.”

She bit the inside of her cheek.

Buck sat back in his chair, obviously noticing her discomfort. “Look. If you go ahead and get married, and he applies for residency now, he won’t have to renew the Alien Registration Card. His six month deadline’s coming up in another few months, and if there’s already a naturalization petition in, it can’t expire until that’s resolved. They can’t take action.”

“Action?” Her heart was in her throat. “They wouldn’t deport him.”

“Maybe not. But anything’s possible,” said the attorney quietly.

“He’s signed the tax agreement. He paid them ninety percent of the money. Why would they just—?” Joan let out a breath, fumbling around in her purse for her cigarettes, and brought out a white cylinder with shaking hands, cursing when she couldn’t even put it to her lips. She tossed it back into her open purse. “Damn it.”

“You all right?” Buck asked, and Joan could feel his eyes boring holes into hers. “Listen, I’m not trying to scare you. I just wonder why a nice couple like you would keep waiting so long.”

“It’s—the kids,” she said quickly, making sure not to look away. It was the first objection she could think of that could be true for both of them; something that couldn’t be written off as him being gun-shy, or her being flighty. “Lane worries.”

“Well,” Buck tapped the edge of his desk with two fingers, giving her a significant look, like it was her fear instead of Lane’s holding everything up. “I understand that, but none of you is gonna feel any better if Dad gets booted out of the country. Let’s bring him back in here, talk through some of your options.”

 _Dad._ Jesus. Joan nodded mutely, rose from her chair, and stepped out into the hallway. Looking around, there was no sign of Lane—although on investigation, there was a conference room door open further down the hall.

When she ducked inside, the lights were off, but Lane was still sitting at the head of the empty table, staring out the window.

“You okay?” she asked.

“What do you think?” His voice was flat, but the question dared her to start a fight. Joan decided not to take the obvious bait.

“Look, if you don’t want to do this—”

“I don’t want to lie,” Lane interrupted, keeping his voice low. He ran an anxious hand across his hair. “This is not some—we’re not children, for Christ’s sake. We can’t just make up a fabricated story for no reason.”

“Lane,” she said quietly. “We don’t have to pretend we’re madly in love.” Not yet, anyway. “I just want to keep you here. We need you here. Isn’t that reason enough?”

He swiveled his chair to stare at her, but this side of the room was so shadowed she could hardly see the look on his face. She wasn’t sure why that was so disappointing.

“If you want to talk to him alone, I’ll wait outside,” she offered. “But I think you should hear what he has to say.”

The silence stretched out between them until finally, he made a noise of assent and rose from his chair, buttoning his jacket as he walked toward the door and out into the hallway. Stopping by the still-empty secretary’s desk, Joan watched him go, leaning slightly against the wood as he knocked twice on the door, opened it, and stepped into Buck’s office, closing it behind him.

They were alone in the elevator on the way down when Lane finally spoke again. He hadn’t said a word since the lawyer invited her back inside the room and tried to schedule a follow-up appointment. She’d made some excuse about needing to check their work calendars first.

“All right,” Lane said gruffly, and Joan turned to him with a raised eyebrow, not understanding.

“What?”

“I—I would be willing to—accept you.” He was looking toward her, but not at her, focusing instead on the arm where her purse was balanced, poised by her left side. “If—if you, erm, still want to go through with it.”

He met her eyes. She felt a flash of relief trip down her spine – almost dizzy with the feeling – and reached out to grab his hand, clutching it so tightly her knuckles felt like they went white. The strap of her purse swayed awkwardly against their wrists, and his hand twitched in her iron grip before Lane curled his fingers around hers in a very purposeful way.

Oh, thank god. He’d do it. He’d get to stay.

When the doors opened, their hands were free and they were standing with a little space between them, but Joan still felt lightness in her chest as they walked toward the lobby exit. Well, at least they’d made a decision.

Now, all they needed to do was figure out the details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, l'amour. Joan proposing in the absolute least romantic way possible and Lane getting all huffy and weird about it is my jam. Next chapter should be the wedding itself!


	3. Chapter 3

Although it was eleven a.m., the library was practically empty; a hard driving rain had kept most of the children and parents away this morning. Joan had been one of the few to brave the summer storm this early, and so now Kevin had the children’s librarians almost all to himself.

“Nice of them to have children’s programs,” Lane said, as he and Joan filled out paperwork at a long table in one corner. Across the room, Kevin was lying on his stomach on the carpeted floor, scribbling on a large piece of blue construction paper. Next to him, cutting out a few colorful shapes with childproof scissors, sat a twenty-something young woman with curly blonde hair. “He likes them, I take it?”

“He likes gluing his hands together.” Joan pulled more papers from a brown accordion file she’d swiped from the office. Her little red folder had almost split in two after the first visit to the lawyer, and now that Lane was contributing his paperwork in earnest, they needed a secure way to carry everything, especially considering this weather. “I’m sorry we couldn’t make this a lunch meeting, but you can’t keep him in a booth for more than two minutes.”

Lane chuckled, and when Joan looked across the table, a knowing expression had lit up his face. “Nigel always wanted to play around, at that age. Very curious.”

Joan smiled, too. Lane had told her a lot about Nigel, over the years, but as Kevin had gotten older, and they began to discuss his little milestones, more and more stories of Nigel’s childhood seemed to emerge.

“Did he take after you?” She signed the bottom of a new page with a flourish, and put two stickers next to places where Lane would need to sign and date the form before holding it out to him. “I’m picturing him with his nose in a book.”

“Oh. Erm, not much.” Lane accepted the pages from her, pushed his glasses up his nose with one hand, and then signed his name in two places, the script slow and careful. “More like Becca, I think.”

She found it funny how he always said _Becca_ when the conversation involved Nigel, and _Rebecca_ when his ex was brought up in any other conversation. Must still be habit. “He got your coloring.”

Last time she’d seen the kid, his hair was carrot-red.

Lane met her innocent expression with a raised eyebrow, but she knew he found it funny because his mouth turned up at the corners. “Well. He’s very outspoken. And clever, but he doesn’t care much for school.”

“Typical teenager?” she teased.

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t know, really.”

They were quiet for a moment. Joan tapped her heavy pen against the pages and let her mind wander for a second, imagining what Lane must have been like at that age. Severe and studious, maybe, or a little goofy and awkward—she kept picturing a long-limbed beanpole in thick glasses and a school uniform.

“What’s so funny?” Lane asked, and Joan glanced up, pursing her mouth to keep herself from grinning.

“Just daydreaming. Don’t mind me.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Lunch,” she told him.

“Ah.” He looked back to his papers, and proffered another form that needed her signature. “Would you mind?”

Joan reached for it automatically, her eyes flicking over the title. _Application to Adjust Status,_ page ten.

“Sure.”

**

The next few weeks were a blur of Xeroxing documents and obtaining forms and making sure everything was ready for submission. She and Lane had started staying late on Fridays in order to complete the packet, and tonight, they were still in the office at eight thirty: Lane sitting in his red armchair and Joan on the sofa, with leftover Chinese on the coffee table between them. He’d removed his jacket. She’d kicked off her shoes. He was looking over the documents in the full brown job folder, walking them through what they had so far. The essential papers were now collated into neat file folders, stapled, and paper-clipped accordingly.

His and hers, Joan thought with a rueful smile, as Lane named each document aloud, and then set it aside.

“Two divorce petitions.”

“Check.” She marked this as completed on her master list, which took up two sheets of her yellow legal pad.

“Tax returns, sixty eight.”

“Check.”

“Tax returns, sixty nine.”

“Double check,” she said, which made Lane look up. “I filed last week, so they’re official.”

“Ah.” Lane put aside his stack of pages and reached for his own notepad, to make a note of that. “Thank you. I’m assuming we shall be affected on the next go-round, obviously. New bracket, and all that.”

“Obviously,” Joan echoed, trying not to laugh as she took a drink of water. Based on the lawyer’s estimate of the typical USCIS process, they’d decided that the application would probably take ten to twelve months. That timeline wasn’t set in stone, of course, but a year and change felt reasonable enough. It was shorter than a lot of divorce cases—hers included.

“Right.” Lane put the last file back into the job folder. “Erm—I believe that’s—is that everything?”

“Not quite.” Joan put her list aside. “I still need to write my petition letter. And, of course, there’s the certificate.”

She didn’t need to specify which one.

“Oh.” Lane smiled at her in a way Joan thought was probably meant to be reassuring, although he looked a little nervous. “Yes. I suppose I can, erm, put in for the license whenever you’re ready.”

He’d refused to let her pay for any of this, which irritated Joan to death considering the circumstances, but in the end, they’d argued so much it probably would have been pistols at dawn if she hadn’t agreed.

“Well,” she said slowly, “the sooner we file the petition, the better.”

“Right,” Lane said, and made another quick notation. “Erm. Do you—is there a particular day you’d prefer? For the, er—for City Hall?”

Joan shrugged, trying to remember her schedule offhand as she searched for her day planner. “I don’t want to do a weekend. It’d be hard for me to get out of the house.”

She hadn’t told her mother about this little plan, and had resolved to keep it private. Sure, she and Lane would be legally married, but they wouldn’t live together, and it wouldn’t keep her away from Kevin. Her mother would only give Joan grief if she knew what was happening.

“Fair point,” Lane let out a sigh. “Erm. We could take a day. I’ve got some time early next week, if you…unless you think that’s too…”

“What do you think about having a witness?” Joan interrupted, tapping the tip of her pen against the legal pad as she spoke.

Lane looked confused. “You mean—someone we know?”

She nodded. “My friend Kate, the one who visited last year. I haven’t asked her, or explained the situation, but I think she’d be willing to come up.”

Kate had already helped her elope once, so she could be trusted to keep a secret. She could also help with some of the details. They’d probably need a picture inside City Hall, just to make it look real.

Plus – selfishly – Joan just wanted one more person to understand what they were doing, so she wouldn’t be so alone. It would be hard to go twelve months keeping this kind of thing from a friend. Kate would know something was off.

Lane sighed, and leaned forward and pushed the edge of his notepad onto the coffee table. It almost tipped over a carton of fried rice. “Why should you tell her anything? She’s just going to—make assumptions.”

“She’s trustworthy,” Joan said. “And if I don’t tell her the truth, she’ll make a different set of assumptions.”

Lane didn't look convinced.

“Don’t you have anyone you want to tell?” she offered. “Andy, or Jim?”

She wouldn’t say Lane had a lot of friends here, but he did like the committee men who served with him in the 4As, and was close to Jim Buckley, the former chairman. Plus, he and Andy used to have lunch on almost a monthly basis when the company was in dire financial straits. At the time, Joan had thought it was a shrewd way to keep the bank on their good side, but now she thinks Lane hadn’t just been doing it for the agency. Maybe he just wanted someone to talk to during all his trouble—somebody neutral.

“Certainly not,” Lane huffed, like she was insane.

She let out a sigh. “Fine. I won’t tell her. I just thought it might be helpful.”

Before she could say anything else, he held up a hand for peace.

“You understand she will be subject to the highest scrutiny. If you believe she’s capable, then do…whatever you wish.”

“She’s capable,” Joan scoffed, as if Lane should have better trust in her friends. “Look, if it makes you uncomfortable, we don't have to have anyone there. Someone else could be our witness. Or it could just be the two of us.”

After the last sentence left her mouth, she felt her skin prickle hot with embarrassment. God. That almost made it sound like a real ceremony. She shouldn’t have said that out loud.

Lane blinked owlishly behind his glasses. Maybe he was coming to the same conclusions, because when he spoke again, his voice was a little rushed.

“No, erm, if she agrees, I-I see no reason to keep her away.” He glanced at his notepad again; Joan knew he was purposely avoiding her eyes. “Erm. What do you think about Thursday? A fortnight from now? It’s an—open day for me.”

She checked her calendar. Surprisingly, she had no meetings. “That could work.”

“We’ll have to take a personal day,” Lane said gruffly.

“The whole day?” she asked. “Do you want to?”

He made a disgusted face. “I wouldn’t want to—come back to work, afterward.”

Joan considered his point. It would be awkward for them to go to the registrar that morning and go right back to work in the afternoon. She supposed asking him to do that was too much. “Okay.”

He nodded, wordless, like he was already committing this to memory.

“But there’s a two-day waiting period for the license,” she added. “Don’t forget.”

When she looked up, Lane was staring at her, and when he realized this, he quickly turned back to his notes. “No. I—I’ll file straightaway.”

“Okay,” said Joan, folding her hands in her lap. “Well, good.”

“Yes,” Lane echoed. “Good.”

**

“ _Holy shit._ ”

Through the phone, Joan could hear the faintest squawk of delight, and two young boys who immediately picked up the chant. _Holy shit! Holy shit!_

Kate’s voice got more distant, as if she were yelling up a set of stairs. “Bed right now, or you’re both grounded.” Little footsteps thundered off quick, and there was a click as Kate adjusted the phone in some way. “Sorry. I just—”

“I know,” Joan said quickly, putting a hand over her eyes. She was lying on her back on the sofa in her office, with the phone and an empty rocks glass sitting on the floor next to her, along with two handwritten drafts of her petition letter, marked through with red pencil. “It’s unexpected.”

“Unex—honey, I’d’ve been less stunned if you’d told me you got pregnant.”

This was meant as a question.

“For god’s sake, Katie, I’m not pregnant,” Joan huffed, refusing to think about what that would mean in this situation. “Do you want me to explain it again?”

“Yes,” Kate said immediately. “Because I have no idea why you’d do this for some coworker at random. I really don’t.”

“He’s not _some coworker_.”

“Yeah? So what is he?”

Joan pulled her hand away from her face. “I already told you, we’re friends.”

“Well, I’ve got work friends, too, and I’m not marrying any of them.”

“You’re already married.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

 Joan let out a sigh. “I thought you of all people would understand.”

“I’m trying!” Kate’s voice got a little shrill. She paused, and then kept speaking, voice low. “Okay. Why do you have to be the one to do this?”

“I don’t have to do anything—”

“I know you said you’re getting something out of it, but—”

“—I’m just trying to help him, for god’s sake—”

“—won’t even be able to get an annulment, so why the hell would you—”

“Because it’s important!” Joan said loudly—more loudly than she meant to, because her voice echoed throughout the empty office. She quickly lowered it. “Lane’s been worried sick over this when he doesn’t have to be. And I want him to stay here, all right? Jesus. Why is that such a big deal?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Are you still there?” Joan asked, sitting up a little.

“Yeah,” Kate said, more subdued now. “I’m still here.”

Joan wasn’t sure why Katie was so quiet, and tried to reassure her. “Katie, all I’m saying is that we’ve considered this from every possible angle. It’ll be fine.”

There was a crackle of static down the line as Kate let out a sigh.

Joan knew that sigh. It meant: _you’re crazy, but I’m listening_. She kept talking. “The ceremony’s two Thursdays from now. I’ll pay for your train ticket, and a nice hotel. You could stay Wednesday and Thursday night, and go back Friday.”

“Joanie,” Kate sighed again, “your mother is gonna pitch a shitfit if she finds out.”

“She had better not find out,” Joan countered.

“Augh.” There was a noise like a growl. “Fine. I’ve got to talk to my old man just to make sure, but—I’ll be there, okay?”

“Good,” Joan felt a surge of relief. “Thank you.”

After they hung up, she went back to her desk, sat down, grabbed a fresh sheet of paper, and wrote a new draft of the letter. The words came easily this time.

**

“No, you’ve got it right,” Joan balanced the receiver between her ear and shoulder as she filled out paperwork. Lane had called her in a panic from the registry office before he’d even applied for the license; he had doubts about remembering her full legal name correctly. It wasn’t his fault. They’d never discussed it. “I dropped my middle name when I got married.”

_The first time._

Lane sounded relieved. “Oh, thank goodness. I—I thought that must be it. But just to confirm: it’s aitch-oh-double el…”

Well, at least he remembered how to spell it, Joan thought as she listened. Another thought occurred to her. “What’s your middle name?”

“What?” Lane asked.

“I’ll need to know it for the vows,” she reminded him, not unkindly.

There was a short silence.

“Erm. Well, it’s—Alistair.”

Joan almost laughed, and had to press her lips together to keep herself composed. Oh, god, what a stuffy thing to name someone.

When she didn’t immediately burst out in guffaws, he let out a breath. “Never really cared for it much.”

“Well, it’s very English,” she said carefully. “But it sounds nice.”

Lane Alistair. Lane Alistair. That actually did have a ring to it, Joan thought. Maybe his mother was onto something.

A knock sounded on the door, and after a second, it opened to reveal Clara, who poked her head inside.

“Expense reports?” she asked quietly, holding up a green folder. Joan beckoned her forward.

“Anyway,” Lane said on the other end of the line, clearing his throat. “Erm. I’ve—I’d better go, so I can—”

“Yes,” Joan replied, taking the two folders Clara handed her. “I agree. But Clara’s just brought the expense reports. Dawn wanted me to see them.”

 _Lane,_ she mouthed to the secretary, who nodded in understanding.

“Oh. Excellent.”

“That’s all,” Joan said to Clara, who nodded again, and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

“Yes—” Lane sounded very distracted “—well, I really must go, but I’ll—see you later, then.”

Did he want to ask her something else? “Okay. See you soon.”

“Right. Erm, goodbye.” And Lane hung up.

Joan sighed, and replaced the receiver in its cradle.

**

Thursday, ten o’clock, and the marble hallway to the Marriage Bureau was beginning to get crowded. Near the registration desk, couples were laughing with their friends, and taking pictures, and kissing each other as they went in and out of the justice’s office. Meanwhile, Kate and Lane were stuck out here while Joanie was fixing her hair. They hadn’t even checked in yet.

Kate kept an eye on Lane, who was still pacing in their particular corner. Joan had warned her about that. He looked more nervous with every minute. She discreetly checked her watch. “It shouldn’t be much longer. Joanie’s just primping. You know how she gets.”

“Mm,” Lane didn’t stop pacing.

Well, all right. Kate kept talking. Maybe inane conversation would get him to loosen up. Dennis always said she could talk an Eskimo off an ice floe.

“April’s a nice month to get married. You should have seen us in the hotel this morning. I think Joanie changed outfits four times.” Kate let out a laugh, gesturing to the camera that was hanging on a thick leather strap around her neck. “She wanted to look good for you. And for the pictures.”

Lane stopped, and suddenly glanced down at his clothes in alarm, like he’d shown up to a big event completely underdressed. “Is it—we won’t—clash, will we?”

Kate gave him a reassuring smile. He was wearing a long black coat over a double-breasted suit vest, paired with dark grey trousers and a top hat. She’d never seen anyone here wear an outfit like that to a wedding, even the church ones. He looked like he jumped straight out of a Cary Grant film. “No, I think you look good.”

 _He’ll be put together,_ Joan had told her as she yanked clothes on hangers from the hotel wardrobe. _I can’t show up in a work dress._ _It’s a wedding, for god’s sake._

 _Your wedding,_ Kate had reminded her, but Joanie was on a tear, and had ignored everything else that got said until the room service cart arrived.

That first phone call was what got the wheels turning in Kate’s mind. Joanie didn’t do anything by halves for people she loved, and so if she was doing this, she obviously loved this man a lot—a hell of a lot. _I don’t want him to leave._ Kate really wasn’t sure if they thought this entire scheme was platonic or convenient or what, but she also knew an obvious crush when she saw one, and Lane seemed like he might dissolve into a puddle of anxiety if he had to wait on Joan for much longer.

And Joan was so protective of him. _He’s been worried sick._ Like she couldn’t stand the thought of this man being unhappy.

In a flash of inspiration, Kate bent down, slipped her hand under the hem of her blousy knee-length floral dress, and fished out the silver flask that had been strapped to her outer thigh. “Here. Have some whiskey. You’re practically vibrating.”

Lane stared at her like she’d just grown another head, but walked closer, and held out his hand for the flask, wordless. Kate smiled as he took it from her. Boy, did she know nervous grooms, or what?

“Thank you,” he rasped out after he’d taken a long drink, and screwed the cap of the flask back on before handing it over.

“You’re welcome,” she replied cheerfully. “Don’t worry, I gave Joanie one earlier. It really calmed her down.”

“Oh?” Lane looked surprised. Like he couldn’t believe Joan could even get nervous, which was hilarious.

“Sure did,” Kate said, and decided to start taking candid pictures. The posed photo she’d snapped of him earlier had seemed too forced. “Did you leave your hat lying around somewhere?”

“Oh. I must have, it’s just—” Lane glanced toward the benches, made a face that said he’d spotted it, and walked over to get it. Kate took the opportunity to snap a quick picture of him standing among the sea of couples, his hat under one arm—then did a double-take when he turned toward her and she saw what he had in his other hand.

“Do you think she might want to carry these?” he asked when he got back, glancing down at the small bouquet of orange and blue and pink nosegays clutched in one hand. _Click._ “They’re not—I didn’t know quite what to get, but this was all they had left at the stand, this morning. They’re—a bit wilted.”

“Looks fine to me,” Kate said first. One pink lily looked droopy, but that seemed to be about it. “I think she’ll like them.”

“Didn’t want to get roses,” he said, with a quick, furtive smile, and Kate laughed even though she didn’t get the joke, and snapped a quick picture in the process. Finally, some photos where he wouldn’t look like he was sweating bullets.

“Sure.”

“Well. I daresay—”

He stopped talking in the middle of his sentence, eyes darkening in recognition, eyebrows lifting in surprise, and mouth still hanging open. Kate didn’t even have to turn around to know that he’d spotted Joan, just hit the shutter fast. _Click._ When she lowered the camera, he still had that look on his face, but was trying to play it off. Oh, my god. He really did like her. She couldn’t wait to tell Dennis. Hell, she couldn’t wait to see Joan’s face.

She turned around and saw her friend walking toward them, wearing the bright yellow dress they’d decided on this morning. Blousy long sleeves were paired with a short, structured bodice and dark patent heels. A gold emerald circle pin brightened the collar, and there were tiny white flowers pinned all into her hair around her crown. She’d put her hair up, which Kate had argued against, but kept the style very loose, the way she’d worn it a few years ago, with loose red curls framing her face and making the usual bun a little wild in the back.

“Joanie, you look gorgeous,” she said immediately, and snapped a picture while her friend was obviously looking at Lane, eyes a little soft around the corners.

“Well, I’m sorry to keep you both waiting,” Joanie gave Kate a quizzical look, and her voice got brisk. “Do you need to do that now?”

“Yes,” Kate said lightly, not wanting to tip her hand, and turned back to Lane, who had two spots of pink in his cheeks, and looked like he was dying to say something in private. “Come on. Let’s go check in.”

She immediately led the way, trying to give them a second alone.

Behind her, Kate heard Lane clear his throat, speaking in a rush. “You look…very pretty. Erm. I—I brought these, if you’d like them.”

For someone who supposedly just needed citizenship, he was trying really hard to make sure Joanie was happy. How the hell could her friend not see that?

“Thank you.” Joan still sounded nervous, much quieter than usual. It was so strange. “They’re lovely.”

“Yes. I hope they, er, compliment your dress. Didn’t know what color you’d wear, and all that.”

Well, Kate thought, as they passed a big family with the girls in heinous blue bridesmaids dresses, now all they had to do was sign in and say their vows without passing out. All she could do was hope these two idiots appreciated how much work she was putting into making this a happy occasion. So what if they wanted it to be dull. Kate would make sure they all had a little bit of fun today, even if it killed them.

The ceremony itself happened fast; Kate just kept taking pictures and hamming up all the right reactions for the justice as Joan and Lane recited their vows in turns, exchanging a pair of worn but handsome rings—much better than the ones Kate had bought at the local flea market.

In the end, Lane actually forgot to kiss the bride—and when the justice prompted him again, and Lane leaned forward to make up for this mistake, he and Joan bumped noses a little, laughed nervously, and then exchanged two quick little kisses in a row, like they were saying an absentminded hello instead of getting hitched.

Kate still took a couple of pictures. In the right light, and from a certain angle, who would know this was all for show? It looked real enough, from where she stood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love the idea of Lane and Joan trying to hurry up and be married On Paper and forgetting that there's a lot of other emotions and little decisions that go into a wedding day. Don't worry - we'll see more of the ceremony in later chapters! But for those of you who are curious, I based Joan's wedding day look [on one iconic Elizabeth Taylor.](http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/stylewatch/gallery/liz-taylor-auction/liz-taylor-dress-660.jpg) Less flower garlands, in my mind, but the bare bones are there for sure.


	4. Chapter 4

_august_  

The conference room was empty except for Joan, with a cup of weak tea at her right hand and a full portfolio of information about Butler Shoes sitting in front of her. Ken either wanted better accounts or was building his life raft, because he’d just started to give Joan some of the smaller clients without warning—Topaz, Butler, Sugarberry Ham.

Not that she was complaining. If she had a full portfolio, at least she could prove to Cutler and Ted that she could carry her own weight. She heard the door swing open, and familiar footsteps, and didn’t even have to look up to see that it was Lane.

“Hiya, honey,” she said dryly, and glanced up to see his reaction. He pursed his mouth in a way that meant he was trying not to smile. “How was your day?”

Although she wasn’t usually one for jokes, taking a facetious approach to their marriage had been a way to ease Lane’s mind about the whole thing, in the beginning. They had almost gone stir-crazy with the news in those first couple of weeks, sitting in meetings, sticking to the same routines, and feeling shell-shocked until Joan had really leaned into the curve and started drawing out all these pretend little scenarios when the two of them were alone together. _Don’t forget, honey, we’ve got bridge with the Cunninghams at eight. Happy wife, happy life. Well, I’ll put a plate in the oven for you._

He lifted an eyebrow, but Joan knew he liked playing this game, because his eyes shone a little behind his glasses, and he always responded in turn. “Going well, so far. And yours?”

“Butler Shoes.” She gestured to the folder in front of her. “It’s a bequeathal, if you can believe it.”

Lane made a disbelieving noise. “Really?”

She nodded. “I don’t know what Ken’s thinking.”

Maybe he was quitting. These days, especially after the Chevy pursuit, Joan was never sure.

Lane glanced around the glass windows, as if to make sure they were alone, then fished out a letter from his jacket pocket, and slid this across the table to her. “Forgot to mention earlier, you got a letter at the flat the other day. Think it’s a receipt, or something.”

She glanced at the postal address, still surprised to see the name in print: _Mrs. Joan H. Pryce._ She hadn’t formally changed it—in fact, she was reasonably sure she’d signed _Joan Holloway Harris_ on the marriage certificate by mistake—but people always assumed, when you got married, and this was no different.

She reached for the letter automatically, sliding the flap open with her index finger and pulling out the single page to read.

_Upon receipt of your submission to USCIS…_

Four little paragraphs hit her like a blow to the gut, and the next thing she knew, she was striding into Lane’s office as he raced to catch up.

_Your first interview will be conducted at an official USCIS station within the next few weeks…the second at home…_

“Home interview,” she choked out, the second Lane had closed and latched the door behind them. Lane shoved her folder of papers onto the coffee table, and held out his hand for the letter, wordless. She handed it over.

“Well,” he said faintly, once he’d scanned it. “We, we were aware that might happen, so I suppose the next thing to do is to—you’ll just have to keep a few things at—at the flat, for when this person comes round. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“I have a three-year-old,” Joan said flatly, as if this bore repeating. Oh, god. What if two interviews weren’t the rule, but a kind of hidden test? “I can’t just run over to your house on a second’s notice.” Jesus. She’d have to start staying there sometimes—and something even worse occurred to her, too. “What if they try to interview Kevin?”

“Surely not,” Lane sat down next to her on the sofa, putting one hand on her knee, briefly. “He’s only a boy. Joan, it’s—you said yourself that this was the due process. We knew there would be a single interview, so I suppose we’ll just—we’ll have to treat these like any other intensive examinations.”

“Oh, my god,” Joan groaned, and pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand. “What are we supposed to do, write out flashcards? _Name the year I got married._ ”

Lane patted the top of her other hand, still pressed against the sofa cushions. His voice sounded amused. “Well, it’s not a—bad idea, really.”

She pulled her hand away from her face to glare at him. How the hell could he be so calm about this? What was wrong with him?

**

_They were next in line, sitting silently together on the bench, Joan in her yellow chiffon dress and Lane in his elegant suit. Kate had gone to powder her face, or maybe to take another shot, Joan wasn’t sure—but it left the two of them alone for several minutes, sitting on a hard wooden pew that faced a closed doorway and watching as wedding parties of various sizes fluttered through the hall in chatty, thrilled groups._

_“Did you ever think you’d get married again?” Lane asked her suddenly._

_Joan turned to him, regarded the anxious way his eyes searched hers. Her first instinct was to say_ I don’t know _, but she squashed this in favor of honesty. Her stomach felt like it was in knots. “Well, I hoped that I would. One day.”_

_“Oh.” He let out a shaky breath. “I, er, never expected to.” He ducked his head slightly before glancing over at her again. “Don’t know why.”_

_The right side of his hair was a little messy under his top hat, and on an impulse, she reached out her hand, brushed the flyaway lock behind his ear, and then pulled her arm back. His eyes followed the movement._

_“You’re—a-a very good woman,” he said, taking her hand in his before she could pull it all the way back. “You ought to know how much I—well, that I am—thankful. Truly.”_

_She could feel him shaking, and squeezed his hand for reassurance, maybe harder than she should have. “I know.”_

_They sat like that for almost another minute before Kate came bustling back up with her camera, and the justice’s doors opened, and everything seemed to happen all at once. They were ushered inside the room. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. She felt lightheaded standing next to him in the middle of the rotunda. This was happening. They were actually getting married._

_And then Justice Stevens came back inside, and it was done._

_“…I now pronounce you married in the state of New York.” He was beaming at them. “Sir, you may kiss your bride.”_

_Joan could almost feel the palpable relief pouring off of Lane, at that point, but she still had to squeeze Lane’s hand again to get his attention. Did you hear him?_

_Lane seemed to come out of his daze, eyebrows knitting down. “What?”_

_The Justice chuckled, his voice fond. “You can kiss your bride.”_

_Lane’s eyes widened, but before he and Joan could stare at each other for too long, he was leaning forward and so was she. Embarrassingly, they bumped noses at first—she couldn’t help laughing against his mouth after it happened, it was so ridiculous—but they recovered and kissed very briefly, twice._

_She still doesn’t know why it happened twice, but when she pulled away, Lane looked surprised and Katie was cheering and the Justice was smiling at both of them._

**

They were standing inside Lane’s apartment in the middle of the living room. Joan tried not to grimace as she looked around. After an initial walkthrough, she could see there was nothing really wrong with the place. The decorations were surprisingly tasteful, but…

“No one’s going to believe a woman lives here,” she told Lane first, letting out a sigh as she glanced over at the bookshelf again.

“Don’t you like it?” Lane asked carefully.

Joan was equally judicious with her reply. “The décor is elegant, but that’s not what I meant.” She gestured toward the bookshelf as if to prove a point. “Twenty books on military history. No coasters, no throws, no fruit in the kitchen—very few hanging pictures—and the master suite doesn’t have a trinket in sight.”

 _The bathroom vanity was also covered with your toiletries_ , she didn’t say, but that had actually made her smile. She actually liked seeing his shaving brush and jar of lather cream sitting next to the taps, along with a leather strop. It was another new fact about him, to be assembled with all the rest. He still used a straight razor. How fascinating.

“Ah,” Lane seemed to relax. “The, er, feminine touch, you mean.”

“Exactly. It doesn’t look lived-in,” she agreed. “Not for a wife, anyway.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Well, erm, what do you think we should…?”

“I think we can just strategically incorporate a few things of mine,” she told him, noticing the look of relief that came over his face. She wouldn’t be selfish enough to take up the whole apartment. “Nigel’s room could be adapted for Kevin, considering the twin beds.”

Lane was watching her like he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “You’d want Kevin to—to stay here?”

“Not often,” Joan said, biting her lip briefly as she looked away. “But occasionally.” She realized she hadn’t even asked his permission, and immediately rectified that misstep. “Is that all right?”

“Course,” Lane said gruffly, and they quickly changed the subject.

**

_“Okay,” Kate shoved her white pocketbook onto the counter in front of her, beckoning the bartender closer, as Joan and Lane filed in behind her. “Hi. Can I get three shots of whiskey?”_

_“Katie,” Joan said, and gave her friend a warning look, but the other woman just waved her off._

_“Oh, what are you going to do instead, go home? Go have lunch?”_

_“Well, not—right away,” Lane insisted, looking from Kate to Joan like they were both crazy._

_“Come on. It can be your official toast, or something.” Kate grinned at the bartender as he put the first shot in front of her. “You know these two just got married?”_

_“Nice,” he replied mildly, glancing at Lane and Joan in turn as he set two more full shot glasses next to Kate’s pocketbook. “Good for you.”_

_“Come on, Joanie.” Kate had already picked up her glass. “It’s on me!”_

_“God,” Joan gave Lane an apologetic look, but she still reached out to pick up her shot. Lane did likewise, and soon enough, they were all facing each other, waiting for Kate to speak._

_“Erm.” He glanced at Joan. “What are we toasting?”_

_“To the bride and groom!” Kate brandished her glass high above her head with a delighted laugh._

_Joan let out a tiny sigh, but raised her glass._

_“Chin chin,” Lane murmured as they all clinked their glasses together, then knocked back their drinks in one gulp._

_Someone in the back of the restaurant whistled._

_“Okay,” Kate said, as soon as they’d put their empty glasses back onto the bar counter. “Bartender, another round.”_

_“Only one,” Lane said firmly, exchanging another long-suffering look with Joan as he reached into his coat for his wallet. “And that’s it.”_

_The champagne cork burst from the bottle with a pop._

_“To the happy couple!” Kate shouted as she poured the first glass, and then shoved the bottle into Lane’s hands without warning, rushing up to a strange man a few feet down the bar who was rubbing his side with a wince. “God, sorry! Are you okay?”_

_“That’s what you get for ordering champagne,” Joan called out to her, and glanced at Lane like she was waiting for him to agree._

_“Oh,” he said around the rim of his glass, eyes innocent. “Are we not—?”_

_She snorted, and grabbed a glass that sat next to the half-full bottle and nine empty shot glasses._

_“Well, this certainly turned out better than I thought,” Lane remarked, as they watched Kate lead her new friend to the jukebox by one hand._

_“Put that in the paper,” Joan held her glass out to him, and they clinked them together in a careless way, a bit of champagne sloshing onto their shoes._

_Two familiar guitar chords rang out, and suddenly Kate was rushing back over, threading through a few people and nearly pitching headfirst into her chair before she caught her balance._

_“Joanie! Lane! Come dance with us.”_

_“Oh, no,” Lane said immediately. “Thank you.”_

_“Come on! Jerry’s got some friends, so we can all do it! It’ll be great!”_

_"I do like this song,” Joan bit her lip, glancing toward the jukebox with a wistful expression. A small crowd of people had formed, and was doing the twist._

_“Lane?" Kate asked. "I bet you’ve got some moves. I really want to see them.”_

_“You’ll be very disappointed.” He took another drink of his champagne, voice prim. “Because I don’t dance.”_

_Joan raised a challenging eyebrow. “He does. I’ve seen it.”_

_Lane scoffed out an offended noise. “You never have!”_

**

That Friday, they were in his office again, but without dinner, this time.

Joan sat down in her usual spot on the sofa, and handed him a legal pad full of handwritten questions. “I made a list of topics I think they might ask us.”

Lane glanced over the first sheet. Not seeing the end of the list, he immediately flipped it over, and then made a choked noise.

“You can’t possibly think they’ll care about _that_.” He stabbed at the middle of page two with his index finger, frowning at her neat penmanship.

“They’ll ask us things only a husband or wife might know,” Joan said wearily. “Breakups, divorces….”

“When did you have your first sexual experience?” Lane read straight from the page, voice loud and incredulous. “Specify year and age? It’s—I will not share that kind of information with a perfect stranger!”

Joan let out a sigh. “Jesus. It doesn’t have to be that difficult! For example: I was fifteen. It was the fall of forty five, at my boyfriend Jimmy’s prom.”

Lane raised his eyebrows.

Joan stared right back at him, motioning toward the sheet of paper. “Write it down.”

After a moment, he did, the nib of his fountain pen scratching against the paper as he worked.

“Must have been complicated.” Lane said quietly. “The other aspects, I mean. Young bucks—you never can tell about, erm, intentions.”

“Yes, well,” Joan made an amused noise. “I had already developed. It’s a miracle it wasn’t earlier.”

His eyes widened a little. “Ah.”

There was a small silence.

“I was a—a bit older. Er. There weren’t any girls in my secondary school, you understand, so it wasn’t until I went to university that...”

“Who was the lucky girl?” Joan asked, and Lane smiled.

“Emily,” he said. “Erm. We had a maths course together, my third year, and she asked for—she said she was having trouble with the material.”

Joan let out a fond laugh. _Oldest trick in the book._ “They always do.”

His smile widened. “So, I arrived at her dormitory with my things, and she told me that we ought to study in her room, as the front parlor was too crowded. Matron was a bit scattered, which was how we were able to sneak up.” He shrugged. “That was it.”

“Did you keep seeing each other, afterward?” Joan asked.

Lane shook his head. “No. She wasn’t looking for—for anything else, although I didn’t find it out until after we.... well, on the whole, it was very confusing.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Jimmy cheated on me later that summer.” She made an amused noise. “I threw a soda in his face when I found out.”

“Oh,” said Lane, and laughed a little. “I’ll—write that down, then.”

**

“My mother’s got her poker game next Thursday night.” She and Lane were alone in the upstairs kitchen for now, considering how early it was – not even seven thirty – but Joan still kept her voice low as a precaution. “She’s usually gone a few hours, but the movers will be done before she pours herself into bed.”

He looked surprised. “She won’t hear them?”

“Not unless someone barges in there and tries to seduce her.”

“Herculean task,” Lane pulled a horrified face. “Thank you for _that_.”

Joan covered her smile with a hand as she checked on the boiling water. “As a courtesy, I’m not going to mention her opinions on other famous Romans.”

“Very generous,” Lane said dryly.

There were quiet footsteps in the hallway, and she and Lane shared a look of perfect understanding before falling silent. A moment later, Jim Cutler appeared in the doorway wearing his usual dark suit. His eyebrows jumped up in surprise when he saw the two of them together.

“Joan. Lane. Good morning.”

“Jim,” Lane said, giving him a curt nod.

“Are we still on for the breakfast meeting?” Joan asked Cutler, who nodded in affirmation.  “I was just telling Lane, Avon is proving to be very cooperative.”

Cutler raised an eyebrow. “We’ll discuss our personnel change first. I believe Lou and Ted are finding common ground. Don’t you agree, Lane?”

“Oh, it—it does seem so.” Lane was careful not to look at Joan as he said this. She knew why. They’d had plenty of discussions about Lou and Ted and _creative_ , but none of them had involved those two words _._

“Well, then,” Joan turned off the eye of the stove, where the pot of water was finally boiling. Lane would need to get the tea or else it would look suspicious. “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”

**

_The crowd of dancers was so thick it had spread from the jukebox out across the sea of pushed-aside tables, almost up to their seats at the far end of the bar. Joan was drinking the last of her champagne, while Kate was off god-knows-where with the guy she’d accidentally hit with the champagne cork._

_Another song boomed to life, but it wasn’t fast this time, some slow doo-wop hit from at least fifteen years ago. Joan was ready to put down her glass and take a quick trip to powder her nose when Lane suddenly appeared in front of her, holding out one hand, palm up._

_“Come along,” he said crisply, as if he was asking her to help with the expense reports. He’d taken off his jacket and hat hours ago, and had even rolled up his shirtsleeves, bobbing his arm up and down, clearly prompting her to take his hand. “’S the done thing.”_

_“What?” She almost started laughing. “Really?”_

_“Joan, it’s the done thing,” he repeated, with more emphasis, and fine, if it was just for appearances, she could box step with the best of them. She wasn’t going to let him call her bluff._

_They walked out to the edge of the dance floor, and struck up a formal frame: her left hand flat against Lane’s right shoulder, his right hand braced against the middle of her back, and their other hands clasped at around elbow-level._

_“This has been good,” she said after a minute, watching the young couples around them sway to the music, back and forth with loose, distracted steps. God, they were all babies. “Don’t you think?”_

_“Mm,” Lane said, and accidentally missed a step, although they recovered fast. “Surprising, actually.”_

_“I know.” She glanced over his shoulder to see if Kate was anywhere around, and didn’t see her. “My last wedding was awful by comparison.”_

_“Mine was a bloody disaster.” Lane started giggling, which made her laugh, too; it felt bubbly and contagious. It was a relief to laugh about something, today._

_Joan swayed too far on the step forward, and had to lean into Lane to keep herself from losing her balance. Her arm wrapped around his shoulder and neck, and they were suddenly so close together that they could have danced cheek to cheek, if she leaned to her right._

_The music was low, and she was relaxed, and it took her a minute to realize that people nearby were tapping their drinks glasses together—the sharp, vibrant sound ringing around and around the room._

_Kiss! A few couples near them were chanting. Kiss!_

_"Oh, god,” Lane murmured into her ear, but she pulled her right hand out of his, leaned back to see his face, and tapped his cheek twice with one finger, giving him an amused look that meant she was going to do it. She’d kiss him on the cheek and then these kids would shut up and then they could get back to dancing and talking._

_He looked worried, or maybe bemused, but just as she was leaning forward, he tilted his head and covered her mouth with his. She let out a surprised noise, her fingers digging into his shirtfront while his hands rested gently on her waist._

_When they parted, they were both laughing over the strangeness of it all, while everyone around them was cheering. Lane was red with embarrassment, and she felt hot all over. The room was spinning a little._

_“I’m gonna get water,” she told him, and patted his arm in a distracted way._

**

Monday night, Lane picked up the phone on the third ring, not sure who’d be calling before dinner. “Pryce residence.”

“Oh, hi, Lane,” said a strange woman’s voice. “It’s Kate. I thought I’d give Joanie a call. How’ve you been?”

 _Oh._ “Yes. Erm. Hello. She’s not actually here at the moment. But—things are—well enough, I suppose. Erm. How are you?”

“Oh, I’ve been fine. I thought she was staying over there now?”

Apparently, news traveled quickly between those two. Lane didn’t realize Kate was going to be privy to so many of the finer details. “Well, she is planning to, yes, but not—all the time. So she’s not—she hasn’t brought anything over.”

“Oh, yeah? When’s the big day?”

“Well, it’s, er, next Thursday.”

Kate laughed. “Gail’s poker game.”

Lane made a surprised noise. “Erm. Yes. How did you—?”

“Honey, those old ladies try to put each other under the table every month. Ask Joanie for stories; they’re hilarious.”

There was a sudden crash on the other end, like glass breaking, and Kate pulled the phone away from her ear, nearly yelling now. “ _Boys!_ If I so much as see a baseball, you’re washing floors until your father gets home!”

“Got to go,” she said into the phone in a rush. “Nice talking to you, Lane.”

“Yes, well, to you, also—”

The dial tone was in his ear before he could finish the sentence.

**

They were in Lane’s apartment on the usual Friday night. Joan had decided it would make them more comfortable if they practiced fielding questions in the environment where they would be asked.

“Okay. What’s my age?”

Joan walked gently back and forth over the carpet in her stocking feet, and flipped through a large stack of index cards as she asked each question. A short distance away from her sat Lane, who was perched on the edge of the sofa, posture ramrod straight with his hands braced on his knees, as if he was expecting her to rap him on the knuckles the second he got a wrong answer.

“Thirty eight.”

“Height.”

“Five seven.”

“Weight.”

“One forty five, according to your license.”

She made an approving noise. Good detail. “Do you know the real one?”

He held her gaze for a long moment, and then mouthed _sixty-one_ at her, a questioning look on his face. She nodded. He was low by a couple of pounds, based on her recent measurements, but nobody else needed to know that.

“But I-I won’t say it, unless they ask me.”

“Thank you.” Her voice turned brisk again. “Birthday.”

“Twenty fourth of February, nineteen thirty one.”

“Where did I attend college?”

“New York University, forty eight to fifty two.”

She lowered the thick stack of cards, regarding him with an impressed face. “You’re getting good at this.”

He let out a relieved breath. “Well. Been reviewing, you know.”

“I can tell.” Joan turned on her heel. “Want to keep going, or want to ask questions?”

“No, let’s—switch places,” Lane made a circular waving motion with one arm. “Break the pattern.”

Two minutes later, she was sitting on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, leaning back into the cushions like this conversation was the most relaxing thing in the world.

“Alma mater,” Lane said immediately, before she could get comfortable. He was standing motionless in front of the sofa, flipping through each card as if he were a teacher reading at a lectern.

“King’s College, London, thirty seven.”

“Wedding anniversary.”

“Ours or yours?” Joan asked, and Lane glanced up at her in owlish alarm.

“No, the first one.”

She recovered quickly. “September twenty first, forty eight.”  
  
“And when did we divorce?”

“June of sixty seven.”

“Nigel’s birthday.”

“March thirtieth, fifty five.”

“Any allergies?”

“Stupidity,” Joan said slyly. Lane gave her a mock glare.

“Is that honestly what you’re going to say?”

“Yes,” she told him, enjoying the scowl on his face. “That, and hayfever.”

He sighed, but Joan knew she was right, because he just flipped to the next card. “Very well. We’ll continue.”

**

_“Joanie, why you wanna go? It’s just gettin’ hot! Yeah!”_

_Kate’s arm was slung around Joan’s shoulders as they stumbled out of the bar and onto the street, where a cab was idling at the curb. It was barely eight o’clock, but Katie was officially three sheets to the wind, so they were done for the evening._

_Joan huffed out a breath as Kate tried to get her legs under her, but kept listing to one side, threatening to knock them both off balance. “Come on, Katie, walk! Jesus.”_

_“Right,” Lane walked around the front of the cab after paying the driver, and opened the back door for them. “Here we are. Let’s go.”_

_It took both of them to help Kate into the car and get her situated, but once they closed the door behind her, it seemed like she’d be fine._

_“Hiya, honey,” Joan gestured playfully to the camera that was hanging around Lane’s neck. “Whatcha got there?”_

_Lane laughed, eyes going wide as he looked down. He pulled the camera off his neck and handed it to her. “Oh. Well. Here you are, dear.”_

_“You call all your secretaries dear,” Joan pointed a knowing finger at him, her mouth pursed in a smirk. “I should be different. I’m your wife.”_

_“Oh, good god,” Lane rolled his eyes, but he was grinning, so it was a good sign. “Get on with you, then, wife.”_

_She laughed, and tapped his arm with her pocketbook. “Beat it, husband.”_

_“Lane!” Kate had already rolled down the window of the cab, her arm braced against the empty windowframe and her chin pillowed in the crook of her elbow. “You guys like your wedding?”_

_"Very nice, Katie. Well done.” He shared a smirk with Joan._

_“I’ve got to get her back to the room,” she said in a low voice, and he laughed._

_“Well. Best of luck to you both.”_

_Joan was still smiling as she ducked into the cab and shut the door, and poked a finger into the side of Katie’s ribs to get her friend’s attention. Kate almost hit her head on the roof, she jumped so much._

_“Shit! I’m saying goodbye to your husband, stupid!”_

_“Bye, husband,” Joan called loudly through the open window, and wiggled her fingers toward Lane in a fun little wave. “See you later.”_

_She watched as Lane raised a hand to them, smiling again, and then they were driving away, a cool spring wind stirring the flowers in her hair._

**

“You have to stop being so antsy,” Joan sighed, placing one hand to her back and stretching as she lowered the index card in her other hand. _How did you propose to your wife?_ “They’re not going to know you’re lying.”

“I—it is not about the act of lying,” Lane said through gritted teeth. “I am perfectly capable of—”

“Just pretend you’re talking about someone else.”

“Will you stop giving me advice?” he snapped. “I think I know how to answer a simple question!”

She let out a long breath. “Use what you wrote down, and if you embellish it, then tell me what else you’ll say. That’s all you have to do.”

 _Carriage ride through the city, just before Christmas._ Joan was still surprised by that answer. It was both broad and specific in its detail, and she was still dying to ask him more questions about it. Why Christmas, and not winter? Why a carriage ride? Did he like horses, and not just snow? Even in a fake scenario like this, why wouldn’t he want to do something more private?

She was probably giving it too much credit. Maybe he’d seen it in a movie.

“All right!” Lane pressed a hand to his face, and then removed it just as quickly, sitting up straight again. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Now, Mr. Pryce,” she said, adopting a higher, more accented voice. She sounded a little like Meredith, or maybe Olive Oyl. “Tell me, how did you propose to your wife?”

**

“And you’ve only the one pregnancy, haven’t you, Mrs. Pryce?” Lane had removed his glasses, and was dangling them by his side with one hand. Maybe it was helping him get into character. “Not planning for more?”

Joan blinked. That wasn’t how they’d phrased this question before. _And are you planning to get pregnant again, Mrs. Pryce? Will you have more children?_

“No,” she said, lifting her hands in a shrug. If she were under oath, she’d probably have to allude to this, at least. “I’ve been pregnant three times, but my son wasn’t born until March of sixty six. Lane and I aren’t planning for others.”

Lane stopped walking, and almost fumbled the stack of cards.

“I’m so sorry,” he said in a rush, looking stricken. “I wouldn’t have—you didn’t put that down. I—I didn’t know.”

Joan waved one hand through the air. So he thought there had been miscarriages. They didn’t need to go into more detail than that.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Keep going.”

He nodded, once, and glanced down at the next flashcard, clearing his throat.

“Right. Erm. And how did you and your husband first meet?”

**

Late Friday afternoon, Joan surveyed the empty boxes in Lane’s living room with a sigh of relief. She pushed one tail of her headscarf out of her face. Her winter clothes and the outfits she’d worn before Kevin had arrived had been hung in the closet next to Lane's suits; there were plenty of options there to give it the illusion of fullness. She’d brought over a few boxes that were jamming her own closet shelf and put them into the hall closet, practically unopened except to bring out a few trinkets and a couple of colorful blankets.

She’d also brought over a box of old books and magazines, ones she’d read a thousand times, and probably wouldn’t miss at her apartment, and threaded them throughout his collection. Most of these were from college, and so now Chaucer sat next to Churchill and Shakespeare next to Tennyson and four bound volumes on the Second World War propped up a couple of her old science and math textbooks.

Her makeup was arranged neatly along the seam of the bathroom counter on the opposite side of the sink; she’d bought a couple of new lipsticks, and an extra foundation, and then just paired this with some old eyeshadow and worn brushes and perfume bottles she didn’t use much anymore. If she needed something extra on the two days a week she was going to stay here, they’d come in very handy. For an entire day of work, the progress wasn't bad.

Suddenly there were keys jingling in the door, and Lane stood in the now-open doorway, with his briefcase in one hand and a large full paper bag balanced on the other arm. “I brought home some fried chicken. In case you were getting hungry.”

Lane glanced anywhere but at Joan as he put his briefcase down by the coat rack, and surveyed the changes she’d made to his living room. “Oh. It looks—nice. Very, er, lived in.”

“Thank you.” Joan took the bag of food from him so he could hang up his coat, feeling awkward again. She still felt like she was out of place when they spent time together at his apartment. “Let me get some plates for this, if you want to eat now?”

“Erm. Yes. All right,” Lane said quickly. “I’ll just—get changed, then.”

Oh. He changed for dinner when he came home. She hadn’t expected that.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter blew up. But we had a lot of ground to cover!
> 
> "Don’t forget, honey, we’ve got bridge with the Cunninghams at eight," is a quote stolen straight from one of my top favorite episodes of 30 Rock, "Mrs. Donaghy".
> 
> [The song that Kate puts on the jukebox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgdufzXvjqw) during Joan and Lane's makeshift reception is an early rock classic. And [this one's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRb1-SAAIzs) what I had in mind when Joan and Lane are slow dancing.
> 
> Next chapter should be a few slices of home life and the fateful interview...


	5. Chapter 5

_september_            

The first morning Joan stayed over, she was in the master bathroom in her robe at 5AM, brushing her teeth, when Lane pushed open the door with no warning. He squinted at her in a startled way, and shielded his eyes like he’d just walked in on her changing. The only thing she noticed, besides his rumpled blue pajamas, was how messy his hair was, especially in the front.

“Sorry.” He muffled a yawn. “Erm. Forgot.”

She would have had some smart reply, except that her mouth was full of toothpaste, and so all she could do was make a forgiving noise before leaning forward to spit delicately into the sink.

“All yours,” she said lightly, after rinsing her mouth, tapping the extra water off her toothbrush, and turning off the faucet. “I’m going to make some tea.”

**

Over the first couple of weeks, they still practiced for the interviews at night, after work.

“Now, Mrs. Pryce, have you met any of your husband’s family?”

“No,” said Joan. She was standing by the bookshelf this time. It felt natural to practice in various parts of the room, just in case. “I’ll meet Nigel, when he visits, but Lane doesn’t get on with his brothers.”

“That isn’t what I said,” Lane grumbled, and she glanced over at him. “Lewis and I are—fine—”

“But you do hate Charles,” Joan interrupted to clarify, and Lane nodded absently. “They’ll still want to know why you won’t introduce me.”

“Because he’s horrible.” Lane stared at her like this much should be obvious.

“And your father?”

Lane stared at her. She swallowed, and kept speaking.

“I know you two don’t get along.” That was essentially what he’d written down next to her question. _Has your wife met your parents, or any other family?_ “But if they want to know anything else, I’ll look like an idiot.”

“You assume it’s—” Lane sighed. “For god’s sake, Joan.”

“I’m not prying,” she said, feeling defensive. “They’ll ask about in-laws.”

“ _I know that_.”

She fell silent for a second. “Just give me something real to say, so we have the same answer.”

At least Joan had been astute enough to write down a quick summary: that her father left them and was out of the picture.

Lane’s reply, when it came, was halting. “We’re—we’re not really in contact.” He glanced down at the floor for a second, then back up to Joan with an apologetic expression.

She didn’t speak. His posture was very stiff.

“Erm. I know the answer I put down was—brief. Perhaps too much so, for these purposes.”

“Probably,” Joan agreed, still not sure where this was going. She decided to throw him a lifeline. “Lane, I know this is hard.”

“But you don’t—” Lane let out another breath, drumming his right fingers on the sofa cushion next to him before getting to his feet. “Hang on. Just a moment.”

Joan watched him go with a surprised expression, but he was only gone for a couple of minutes before he returned, with a large manila envelope in one hand, which he immediately thrust in her direction before returning to the sofa. He didn’t sit down, though, just stood in front of his seat.

“This—well, perhaps it may—well, you may open it.”

With purposeful motions, she lifted the flap of the envelope, and pulled out the first binder-clipped document. _Last Will and Testament of Robert Alan Pryce._

 _Oh, my god._ Joan sat down in a nearby armchair, and quickly began to scan the rest of the document, as fast as she could. _I, Robert Alan Pryce of the Borough of Lambeth in the city of London, being of full age and of sound mind and body, make, execute, and declare this instrument as my last will and testament, hereby revoking any and all former last wills by me at any time heretofore made. Item one. At the time of this will, I have a single legitimate son whose name is Charles Alan Pryce. This child shall hereinafter be referred to as my executor, or my legal heir._

She read a little further, stunned into silence, before glancing up at Lane with wide eyes. Robert disowned two out of his three sons?? “Jesus.”

“Read on,” he told her flatly. She looked down at the paper again.

_Item two. I direct my executor to pay out of my estate any just debts and funeral expenses…_

Joan didn’t know where to start. She had no idea the relationship between Lane and his father was so toxic. “Is it because you got divorced?”

“Read on.” Lane motioned for her to keep going.

She skipped several paragraphs, down to item three. _In the event that my legal heir should predecease me, should shirk his sworn duties, or fail to survive me by a period of thirty (30) days, and if it becomes necessary or desirable that another guardian of my Estate should be appointed, then it is my wish and direction that any court having jurisdiction appoints the following person as executor and guardian of my Estate: Rebecca Elizabeth Pryce, in care of Nigel Alistair Reginald Pryce._

“Jesus,” she breathed again, looking up at Lane with a disgusted expression. “What is _wrong_ with him?”

Who sides with their son’s ex-wife in a divorce?

Lane lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

“Does Lewis know?” she asked next.

Lane let out a noise that wasn’t really a laugh. “He was the first.” _To get disowned,_ Joan guessed. “Although I’m not—there may not have been—paperwork, at the time. He—well, he, er, ran away. At sixteen. Anyway, there’s, er, nothing to inherit by—well, by our standards.”

Putting the first page facedown into her lap, Joan glanced back into the manila envelope, and spied a letter-sized envelope sitting at the bottom. Sealed. She pulled this out, conscious that Lane was watching her every movement.

“I—” he seemed to falter, eyes darting from it to the will in her lap. “If you’re going to open that, don’t tell me what it says. I don’t want to know.”

“What?” Joan weighed the letter in the palm of her hand. Couldn’t be more than a couple of pages, judging by the size. _You’d let me read it?_

Lane sighed, and got to his feet again. “I—I’m going to take a few minutes. You may act in whatever way that you see fit. But if you—I am firmly resolved on this point. Do not share a single word of it, Joan. Do you understand me?”

Joan nodded, once, already feeling anxious. “Yes.”

She waited until Lane’s bedroom door had closed before darting over to his desk to get the silver letter opener, slicing through the flap of the letter with one clean motion, and putting the letter opener back onto the tabletop as she yanked out the letter itself. It took seconds for her to understand why Lane would never want to read it.

_You have been a constant disappointment—a cowardly, sniveling, impotent excuse for a man—and since this continued obstinance could not be thrashed out, you shall now feel my displeasure to the fullest letter of the law._

She sunk into the desk chair on weak legs, unable to stop herself from reading faster—

_I have given you every opportunity to put your home in order. You chose to make a mockery of such efforts, and continue to stain the name I foolishly bestowed upon you. You have cast off your sworn wife and the rest of your family, despite my clear directives._

_As a result of your vile actions, I take no leave of you. I send no regard to your odious companions—for the buggerer and the nig—”_ Joan actually gasped _“—lover are not, and have never been of my strong stock. Likewise, I send no regard to the wastrels to whom you are most willfully partnered. You deserve no such attention, and have brought only shame and disgrace upon yourself. You are weak, foolish, and unimpressive. You are no son of mine._

 _Signed,_ _Robert Alan Pryce_ , with the date and year below this, in quick, neat handwriting. Joan’s hands shook as she finished reading, and when she got to the end of the letter, she actually blinked back tears, and had to put a palm over her mouth. My god. My god.

When Lane emerged from his room twenty minutes later, Joan was much calmer, and had already decided on a course of action. His father’s will was clipped together and lay neatly in its envelope next to the letter opener on Lane’s desk. The ugly letter was clenched tightly in her right fist, along with something else.

Lane didn’t say anything when he saw her, just walked straight toward the drink cart. Before he could even reach for the lid of the ice bucket, Joan was standing at his left side, in front of an ornate end table. In one quick motion, she slapped the letter and her gold lighter onto the tabletop, with more force than she’d originally intended.

“You were right,” was all she said, and met his resigned gaze with clear eyes.

Lane should never read this letter, and if he didn’t agree with her current suggestion, Joan was still going to make sure he never saw a word. She’d shred it, or trash it, or throw it down a goddamn storm drain. Nobody deserved to read such hateful things about themselves.

Her heart was pounding in her ears. She could still picture Robert’s handwriting in her mind—a large, bold capital L standing out against the rest of the page. _Likewise, I send them no regard._

Lane stared from the lighter to the open envelope and back to her, obviously understanding what she meant. “You’re—you aren’t serious.”

“I am,” Joan was surprised that her voice was so steady. “If you meant what you said, it’s so you aren’t tempted.”

Lane stood motionless for a long few seconds before he nodded, hesitant, and reached for the envelope. Taking this in hand, he opened the silver ice bucket – which was just filled with an inch or two of tepid water – and set the lid aside, then picked up her lighter.

His hands were shaking, but after three clicks of the spark wheel, the flame flickered to life, and Lane lowered it to the bottom right corner of the envelope, watching it smoke and blacken until grey wisps grew into fast-licking flames. He held the envelope for as long as possible after he’d lit the first corner—she was afraid he was going to burn himself—but when he couldn’t hold it any longer, he dropped it down into the tepid water. It crumbled and blackened and thin smoke curled away from the paper as the top of it kept burning.

They stood together, motionless and quiet, until the last ember went out, and all that was left in the bottom of the dirty water were dark, soggy ashes.

He let out a breath, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her. She decided it was best to leave him alone for now.

“Okay.” Joan put a hand on his elbow as she reached for the bucket, and picked it up with two hands. She was going to dump out the water, scrub out the bucket, and make him a strong drink. “I’ll clean this up.”

Two nights later, when he asked the loaded question, she knew just how to respond.

“Now, Mrs. Pryce, have you ever met your husband’s parents?”

“No,” Joan sat straighter in her chair. “Lane’s mother passed years ago, and he and his father don’t get along.”

“Ah. And do you know why?”

“He doesn’t like to talk about it,” she said deftly.

“Good.” Lane seemed to realize he was supposed to be in character, and quickly assumed a louder voice. “Erm. Anyway. Next question.”

**

“Mama, I swimmed in the tub!”

“Did you?” Joan tousled Kevin’s damp hair with the fluffy towel before she put it on the floor next to the sink, and helped him into a pair of clean underwear. So far, he’d enjoyed staying at Lane’s, which was a relief. He seemed fascinated to think that there were grown ups living by themselves in their own apartments, with no mothers around to make them eat their vegetables. “Well, did you see anything good?”

“A boat and a duck and a—” two strung-together words she couldn’t understand “—and bubbles!”

“Oh, that sounds fun,” Joan said mindlessly, glancing around at the sink and closed toilet for his pajamas and not seeing them anywhere. Where the hell had she left those?

“Yeah!” Kevin exclaimed, just as there was a soft tap on the closed door, followed by Lane’s voice, which was muffled.

“Sorry. I’ve, er, found a pair of pajamas out in the hall. Think I know just who they belong to.”

Joan crossed to the door, opened it a crack, and took the folded clothes from Lane with a relieved sigh. They were thick cotton, with the Jetsons printed all over them. “Thank you. We’ll be out in a second.”

“Oh, it’s—no trouble. Take your time.”

She made a skeptical noise as she closed the door. Lane could be as nice as he wanted, but she was sure it was taking plenty of effort to accommodate her and a three and a half year old into his daily life, even if it was only two days a week.

Kevin made an excited face when he saw his pajamas, and began to sing the theme song in a warbling, off-key voice. She could barely get his arm in the first sleeve, he was wiggling so much. “Meet George Jetson!”

He couldn’t say the letters ‘g’ or ‘j’ very well. She tried to keep a straight face.

**

_october_

They got the same USCIS letter in the mail again, the same one that Joan had received in August; only it was addressed to Lane this time. It was a word for word copy of the first. Joan didn’t know why they hadn’t been interviewed yet, and got so anxious about it that she actually called the lawyer again.

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry too much about it, Mrs. H,” Buck sounded like he was in the middle of eating lunch. “The piece you’ve got to be on the lookout for is the one that has a timestamp—it’ll specify the day and place of your interview, right down to the minute.”

“So it’s not—they haven’t lost anything, then?” Lane asked. He was sitting on Joan’s sofa, with the other extension pressed to his ear.

“Probably not. Usually the first letter’s just a notification that they’ve got your packet in the processing system. But by all means, let me know if you don’t get an interview set at the center within the next couple of months. I can make some phone calls in that case, find out what’s holding up the engine.”

“Okay,” Joan sighed. “Thank you, Buck.”

“Yes, thank you,” Lane hastened to add.

“My pleasure. We’ll talk soon.”

**

They were in the middle of a traffic meeting, debating the affects of the recent credit crunch on various accounts. Joan couldn’t believe he was against her on this. “You really think disintermediation is the best solution here?”

“Well, why not?” Lane argued. “We as an agency are one of their best customers, Andy’s very willing to extend the capital—”

“Yes, and once the ‘best customers’ are all snapped up, he’s left with commercial paper, a group of speculative borrowers and a lowered credit rating. Why would anyone bother investing with them in that case? Because—”

“—people trust banks—” she and Lane said simultaneously.

“And the banks trust the government,” Lane finished loudly, as if trying to talk over any possible retort. “As it should be.”

Joan just shook her head, and removed her glasses, letting them dangle from around her neck. “Trust is not the same thing as security. It’s not a good idea.”

“Man,” said Stan from the end of the table, and Joan looked over to see him, Ginsberg, Ed, and the new freelancer staring at them with wide eyes. Peggy was scribbling something down in a notebook. “You guys are getting spooky.”

Lane looked self-conscious, and adjusted his glasses with a hand, glancing toward Dawn, who sat at the head of the table. “Sorry. Erm. What—what were we discussing?”

“Dow’s new stock holdings,” Dawn reminded them gently, making a note on her stenography pad.

“Ah. Of course.” Lane opened and shut his mouth, then glanced down toward the other end of the table. “Ken? Anything you’d—like to add?”

 

_november_

Late one Tuesday evening, Lane pushed open the door to his flat and found sheer bedlam inside: a shrill alarm sounding and low-hanging smoke making the foyer hazy, Kevin running around the hall in nothing but his y-fronts, screeching at the top of his lungs, and commotion in the kitchen.

“Son of a bitch!” came a high-pitched yelp.

He tossed his suitcase and coat down and ran to see what was happening. Inside the kitchen, Joan held a small fire extinguisher, aiming the nozzle toward a flaming skillet on the stove as she squeezed the lever. When nothing came out, she threw it aside in frustration, and reached for a large pot sitting just next to the sink.

Somehow knowing what she meant to do, Lane was on the move before he could think, an inarticulate yell tearing from his throat as he knocked the water-filled pot from her hand, back into the basin.

“Jesus!” she shouted, on the heels of a loud shriek.

Water splashed out onto the sink and counter and onto both of them, and without apologizing, he whirled around, grabbed up the fire extinguisher from the floor, aimed the nozzle, and squeezed the release lever.

A pitiful amount of foam sputtered out this time, but it was enough to temper the flames a little. Lane sprayed the fire again, tossed the red canister away, and reached for an oversize pot lid, pushing it down over the charred pan until he felt the fire was out, and it was safe to let go. What the hell had she been cooking?

“You never _ever_ pour water on a grease fire!” he yelled first, turning back to her. “For god’s sake, don’t you know that? You could have killed yourself, and burned down the whole flat to boot!”

Joan’s hair was escaping from its usual twist, thick locks falling down onto her neck; she was flushed and sweating from the heat, and half her dress was wet from the spill of dirty water. Her voice was a shout, voice high and raw from the smoke. Water brimmed in her stung eyes. “Well, I didn’t know what else to do!”

He was prepared to shout right back until she put two hands over her face, and bent her head, a low keening noise escaping her.

“Wh—oh,” Lane said helplessly, horrified. “Oh, no.”

She was too overcome to speak, and so hesitantly, he stepped forward, and put his arms around her back. Immediately, she swayed in his embrace, and leaned her head against his shoulder as she sobbed. For a couple of minutes, he just tried to ignore the smells of burnt food and the high-pitched smoke detector going off and Kevin’s distant mimicking of it, far down the hall.

“There, there.” He stroked her back and her hair, just trying to comfort her, and hoping it would help. “I’m not—I’m not angry, you know. You frightened me. That’s all.”

She let out a choked noise. “I just lost t-track of time—”

“It’s all right,” Lane said automatically, his fingers stroking against the nape of her neck. “These things happen.”

After a moment, she lifted her head, and he felt that it was safe to pull back, although he kept his hands flat-palmed against the sides of her shoulders. Her eye makeup had run a bit, putting smudges under her eyes, and her nose and cheeks were a brilliant red. Her mouth was still trembling.

“God,” she said, and her voice cracked. “I must look awful.”

“S’not bad,” Lane said mildly, pulling a funny face, and indicating that perhaps she should wipe her nose. She glared at him in a halfhearted way, but thankfully, one corner of her mouth twitched up. He took out his handkerchief, and handed it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, glancing over at him again as she wiped at her eyes, and oh, god, he couldn’t bear to see her look so defeated. “I just wanted something different.”

Lane resolved right there and then: they would do something different. “Why don’t we go out for dinner?”

Her eyes widened, and she stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Come on,” he said gently, taking her by the hand when she didn’t move, and pulling her away from the stove, toward the kitchen doorway. “We’ll air out the flat, take a few minutes to change, and then we’ll just—go somewhere.”

“But—” Joan said faintly, like she still wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly, “where would we—?”

When they reached the hall, Lane saw Kevin rolling up and down on a section of the carpet outside his bedroom, like a dog that had been taught a trick, still oblivious to everything that had just happened. They walked over to him, and Lane promptly dropped Joan’s hand, bent down, and picked Kevin up.

“Hello, wild boy,” he said, balancing Kevin’s weight on his left hip with a grunt. Some of the little things had begun coming back to him over the past couple of months; how excited children were to be carried and talked to and promised a bit of fun. “How would you like a hamburger and an ice cream for dinner?”

Kevin’s eyes went wide, and he made a sort of squealing noise, nodding his head up and down so rapidly he looked like a malfunctioning toy.

Lane was grinning, bouncing the boy up and down as he talked. “Well, what about the biggest ice cream in the entire world? With chocolate and nuts and cherries and whipped cream? Could you eat that, do you think?”

Kevin was still squealing, now kicking his little legs in glee, and flinging his arms around Lane’s neck, he was so excited. It was like trying to hold a squirming spider. Lane could barely stay upright. Next to him, he heard Joan laugh a little.

“Well, all right,” Lane said solemnly, putting the little boy down. “If you can get dressed very quickly, then we shall do it _right this minute_.”

Kevin was already tearing past them into Nigel’s room. Lane let out an amused sigh, and turned to Joan, who was looking at him in a strange way.

“I was thinking that place by the dry cleaners,” he said with a shrug.

She cleared her throat, nodding a little. “Okay.”

“Perhaps ten minutes,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm again. “You get ready. I’ll just—I’ll take care of the rest, all right?”

“Okay.” A wan smile came over her face, and relief surged in his chest. He’d come up with a plan, and she’d accepted it.

“Right.”

Dinner ended with Kevin falling asleep at the table, directly after he’d wolfed down most of his hamburger, French fries, and a large helping of ice cream, and then spent another hour crawling under nearby booths with his paddle ball game. Thank god the place was mostly empty, except for a couple of other people. Lane privately thought the waitresses might have tried to kill them otherwise.

Joan cleared her throat. “Do you want the last bite?”

When he looked over, she was pushing a large slice of banana onto the bowl of her spoon, along with the last of the soft serve.

“No,” Lane shook his head. He’d get heartburn as it was. “Go on.”

**

The week after Thanksgiving—he’d spent the holiday with Jim and Polly, while Joan and Kevin had done the usual thing with Gail and a couple of others—they were all at his flat on a Thursday night. The radio was on in the corner, playing classical music for once. Kevin was running around with his toys, talking to himself. Joan was finishing up a bit of work from her usual place on the sofa, and Lane was reading through the sports pages in his armchair, when suddenly he felt a tiny hand on his arm, and lowered the paper to see a toddler beaming at him in a sort of manic way.

“Would you like to check the scores?” Lane joked. The boy looked puzzled, but recovered quickly.

“Mr. Lane,” he said brightly, “can we have some man time?”

Across the room, Lane saw Joan nearly convulse with laughter, one hand flying to her mouth to muffle the sound.

“What on earth is _man time?_ ” Lane asked carefully.

“We’re gonna talk about sports and cars and man stuff!” Kevin turned around to look at his mother, who had gotten herself more under control. “But you can’t be there, Mama.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Joan still sounded as if she were holding in hysterical laughter. “Have fun.”

“No girls allowed,” Lane said, trying to be cheeky, and Joan gave him a significant look this time, one that said he ought not to encourage this behavior.

“Yeah, Mama! No girls allowed!” Kevin chanted, now grabbing for Lane’s hand. Lane stood up dutifully and let the lad lead them down the hall. “No girls allowed!” And the  boy kept this chant up all the way into Nigel’s room.

It seemed as if Kevin mainly wanted to use this ‘man time’ to show off all his toy trains, so naturally they played with those for a little while, and even talked about baseball and the Mets.

There was a strange little moment in the middle of the train games. Lane was asking questions about the depot and the conductor, trying to understand more about the boy’s fascination—if he loved the engines and the moving parts, or the freight aspect, or the shiny paint and interesting work uniforms.

When Lane looked over after a question went unanswered, he saw that Kevin had stopped moving his steam engine around the tracks. When the boy finally glanced up at Lane, it was with an oddly steady gaze.

“Are you Mama’s boyfriend?”

 _Christ._ Little thing could hardly pronounce the word. Lane just swallowed, and decided to keep his answers simple. “Erm. Well, no. She’s—my very dear friend, but that’s it.”

“Wilson’s dad has a girlfriend,” Kevin said blithely. Lane had no idea who that was; must be some friend of his from the preschool. “Wilson doesn’t like her; she smells bad. And Uncle Roger has lots. Mama says I’m not supposed to know.”

“Well,” Lane kept his voice as free of judgment as was possible. “Uncle Roger’s very social, isn’t he? Likes meeting new people. I’m not very surprised.”

“Why don’t you have one?” Kevin asked, as he wheeled a coal car over the roof of a plastic building. “You’re a grown up.”

Lane blinked down at the painted toy engine in his hand—electric blue—and tried not to dwell too deeply on this. “Erm. Well, I—I like the way things are now.” He bumped the nose of Kevin’s train with the car in his hand in an attempt at distraction. “And I like this train set very much. Come on. Let’s have a little race.”

When he returned to the living room nearly an hour later—Kevin needed the toilet—the radio and the lights were still on, but Joan was lying fast asleep on the sofa with her glasses on, an open fountain pen in one hand, two folders on her lap, and a sea of papers spread out all around her on the floor.

Oh, dear. Carefully, Lane moved forward, took the folders from her lap, and stacked them on top of the papers on the floor, placing all of these onto the seat of his armchair. Next, he capped her fountain pen and brought over a bright pink blanket, tucking this loosely around her. He didn’t realize just how much she worked until she had started staying over. She was often going through her papers in the middle of the night, while the rest of the house was asleep. How did she do it, day in and day out? He worried that she was doing too much, but there was no way to tell her these things.

“Lane—” she mumbled, half-awake, as he tucked the blanket around her feet.

“Sleep,” he said gently, brushing a bit of hair away from her cheek. “Everything’s all right.”

“M’kay,” she sighed. Her eyes fluttered closed again.

When he moved back into a standing position, debating whether to leave her here or carry her down the hall into Kevin’s room, Lane noticed that a little boy was watching them from the shadows of the dim hallway.

“Kevin, can you turn out the light? You’ve got to be very quiet.” Lane warned, pointing to the lamp, and the boy nodded gravely as he tiptoed into the living room.

**

They got the official interview letter a few days later; it was extremely brief, and had the date - December fourth - and the USCIS center address printed in bold black letters in the middle of the page.

“Well,” Joan said with a sigh, once Lane showed it to her. “Here we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so the reason the last chapter blew up was because of this particular interview practice scene. I got most of it written out yesterday and decided to update again before the week started. :)
> 
> Poor Lane is such a smitten kitten at this point, it just makes me laugh so much. Thankfully, the tables will get turned on Joan in the next chapter, so stay tuned!


	6. Chapter 6

_december_

           

They didn’t speak on the ride over to the interview, just watched the city pass by through frost-covered windows. Once the car stopped, Joan got out immediately and paid the driver, which finally got Lane to break the silence.

“Why on earth are you paying for the cab?”

“Oh, I was sitting on the left,” Joan said neutrally. “It’s closer.”

“Wha—for god’s sake, we agreed that I should pay for all the official business, including the marriage license, the application, and any related fees and costs!” Lane turned, and started walking toward the application center. “Have you no concept of what an agreement actually means, do you just waltz through all your contracts with such blatant disregard—”

Joan wasn’t listening, but exchanged a knowing look with the driver, who just winked at her. At least someone appreciated what she was trying to do here. She gave the man an extra dollar for his cooperation.

By the time they sat down in the waiting room, Lane’s grumbling had petered out, and was replaced by his usual quiet anxiety. She was pretending to leaf through a magazine, but when he reached out to take her hand, she didn’t push him away, just threaded her fingers through his without a word.

“Mr. and Mrs. Pryce?” A young girl was beckoning them forward. “Mr. Miller is ready for you.”

Their interviewer, Mr. Miller, was a young, harried bureaucrat with oily dark hair and a scruffy beard, wearing a brown polyester jacket, a blue button down shirt, and brown suit pants. For half a second, Joan felt a rush of amusement—he looked like he was Michael Ginsberg’s age, for god’s sake. He was a child.

Her amusement ended around the time he started asking them some very personal questions.

“And do you practice any forms of family planning?”

Jesus. He was allowed to ask about her birth control? Joan cleared her throat. “I’m on the—”

“Abstinence,” Lane blurted out, before she could finish the sentence.

There was a beat of silence.

“The pill,” Joan finished flatly, just as Lane continued:

“Er. Not all the time—just at—at key—points.”

Mr. Miller raised an eyebrow, and wrote something down. “I’m sorry. Are you saying you also practice the rhythm method?”

“Yes,” said Joan quickly. Next to her, Lane made an embarrassed noise.

Oh, god. This was not good.

**

Joan thought the singular interviews were probably going to be more successful. She got through the questions on their family, Lane’s background, and their past marriages with ease, trying to smile and joke and be charming just to prove everything was fine. This strategy probably would have worked if the interviewer hadn’t kept bringing up her sex life.

“And how often are you and your husband intimate?”

“How often?” Joan responded, trying to keep her voice in check. She was getting tired of fielding versions of this question. It wasn’t something they’d practiced for. _When do you and your husband typically make love? How often do the two of you spend time alone together? When did you and your husband first become intimate?_

“Sweetheart.” He sipped his coffee, and sounded as if he’d delivered some version of this speech before. “I understand it’s a delicate subject, but it's a question we've got to ask in order to determine the validity of your marriage. Now, how frequently would you say you and your husband have normal marital relations?”

His condescending tone was infuriating, but Joan just assumed a thoughtful look, and kept her voice light. “Well, I’m not sure exactly. Does sitting on his face qualify as normal?”

Mr. Miller actually choked on his mouthful of coffee, coughing and spluttering; it looked like a little even dribbled out of his nose. Joan couldn’t help smiling as she kept talking, scrunching up her nose in a conspiratorial way.

“Because we both enjoy that.”

He finally regained his composure, then wiped his face with his sleeve, and set his messy coffee cup aside, wiping his hand on the side of his trousers. When he finally spoke again, he was more subdued. “So. Uh. _Regularly,_ you might say.”

“Yes, I might say that,” Joan’s smile widened into a sharklike grin.

**

During Lane’s interview, Joan could tell when Mr. Miller got to the intimate questions, because even from the waiting room, she heard Lane’s voice rise in pitch.

_How—I certainly don’t think—very private—personal!_

Oh, god, he was getting defensive, and he couldn’t pull that off very well at all. It took less than a minute after he first raised his voice for her to grab a paper cup of water and walk down the hallway to the little windowless room.

“Honey, I thought I’d bring you some water,” she said tightly after she opened the door, watching the way Lane was standing poised behind his chair, gripping the back with white-knuckled hands, as if it was the only thing keeping him standing. “You sound hoarse.”

“Joan, I—I don’t like these questions,” Lane ground out, more as an aside to her than a complaint to the bureaucrat. “They’re _very intrusive_.”

“I know,” Joan said in an even voice, and glanced at Mr. Miller to see his reaction. The man didn’t seem angry, just resigned, like he dealt with this all the time, and reached into his files to produce a single sheet of paper.

“All right, I think we’re done for today. You’ll need to take this form down to the front desk and get it processed.”

Joan walked closer to glimpse the title of the form, and got anxious after she saw the title in red letters. _Authorization For Home Visitation._

Of course, after signing the form and giving the notary clerk a bland goodbye, she and Lane basically argued all the way from the lobby doors into the backseat of the nearest cab. The heat was roaring and Joan was exhausted and Lane was still blustering about the provocative questions.

“ _How often do you and your wife make love?_ You don’t mean to say you actually answered that query?”

“Oh, not seriously, Lane,” Joan huffed, fiddling with the clasp of her pocketbook. “Give me some credit.”

“Wonderful.” He let out an angry breath. “It’s so nice to know you’re treating this process with the due gravity and respect that it deserves!”

She sighed. “It was an offensive question. I made a tactical decision to get him to change the subject, and guess what? My strategy worked.”

“What strategy?” Lane looked outraged. “For god’s sake, that interview was not the time for any of your flippancy!”

“It _was_ a strategy, Lane. I knew he wanted an answer, and I knew you’d get defensive—”

“I am not getting defensive!”

“So I just said the most shocking thing I could think of. And he got flustered, and he finally shut up, and I passed my part of this test, _thank you_.”

Horror had dawned on Lane’s face. “What exactly did you say?”

“It was vulgar,” Joan waved one hand through the air in an _it-doesn’t-matter_ motion. “That’s all.”

Lane was speaking very quickly now. “I think I am entitled to inquire as to the particular degree of vulgarity—”

“I didn’t tell him half of what I was really thinking, by the way—”

“Did you or did you not curse at him?”

“No one cursed,” Joan snapped. “I just gave him an answer he was too embarrassed to verify.”

“Will you—oh, for god’s sake! If you didn’t curse, then what the bloody hell did you say to him?”

Joan tossed her pocketbook into the door with a growl. “Fine. He asked how often we have normal sex. So I asked if sitting on your face counted as normal, because we both _loved_ doing that.”

Their cabbie slammed on the brakes, sending them both reeling forward.

“This is a private conversation,” Joan snarled to the driver, as soon as she was steady again.

“I’ll say,” the cabbie remarked, but he flipped on the radio anyway. A low burble of news chatter filled the car.

She turned back to Lane, who still hadn’t said a word. He had his elbows braced on his knees, and was hiding his face in both hands. The back of his neck and his ears were strawberry-red.

“ _God almighty_ ,” he finally whispered, voice hoarse.

“Do you need a minute?” she asked. Maybe he was humiliated, or maybe he was panicking, but either way, it wasn’t good.

Lane’s voice was still higher than usual. He seemed like he was trying to mimic the voice of that clerk from the front desk, or the one they’d used during the practice sessions. “Why did your petition fail, they’ll say.”

“They can’t fail you over one remark.”

“No.” By the tone of Lane’s voice, she was fairly sure he meant _no, I disagree, but I can’t talk about it anymore._

Joan was still spinning theoretical suggestions, determined to convince him that she had put actual thought into this remark. “What was he gonna do, ask what I meant? Ask me for pictures?”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Lane choked out. “Oh, god.”

He definitely sounded panicked. She expelled a deep breath. The only other sounds in the car were the radio and the cab driver snickering.

“He can’t fact-check it,” Joan said primly. “That’s why I—”

“ _Please stop talking_ ,” Lane hissed, and the subject was closed.

**

After changing into comfortable clothes and spending an hour watching daytime TV in the living room, waiting for Lane to stop hiding from her, Joan decided she had better broker a peace offering. Maybe he was still angry, but she was just trying to do the best she could, especially given the circumstances.

It was quiet as Joan made her way down the carpeted hall, and when she noticed Lane’s bedroom door was closed, she wondered if he had accidentally fallen asleep, and stopped by the doorway before she could raise her hand to knock. They could have this conversation later. He’d be calmer if he took a catnap, or just had a few minutes alone to relax.

As she turned away from Lane’s closed door, a low moan echoed out from behind it. Joan felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and turned back around as if pulled on strings, her heart beating faster. As she focused her attention inside the room, she thought she could hear other noises, too: bedsprings creaking low, blankets rustling, or the soft slick friction of his hand on his cock. Quick breaths as he touched himself, the grey trousers he’d been wearing that morning open in the front, with one hand gliding steady up and down, up and down—

She couldn’t stop picturing it. Lane moaned again, a ragged exhale, and Joan felt a swift pulse of desire rush through her body and pool hot between her legs. He’s loud in bed, she thought now, still acutely focused on what he was doing.

_You can’t be here. You can’t be here._

She couldn’t force herself to move.

He rasped out another little noise, desperate, and Joan actually shivered. Oh, god, maybe it was because she’d—her stupid comment really did get him hot. And now she was thinking about the cab ride home all over again; how red he’d been, how his voice shook, how she’d just talked and talked and how it must have driven him crazy. All she’d have needed to do was get a hand on his zipper to feel him…and he’d practically run into his room to get time alone…

A small whine and the sound of the mattress shifting set off alarm bells in Joan’s head. _He can’t know you’re here. Go. Now._

She padded toward the living room in a daze, and the second she reached the couch, she was undoing the silk tie of her robe, lying down and slipping one hand into the front of her leggings—rubbing two fingers over her clit until she felt her body clench in release. _Oh, god, yes._

Another one had built behind that, and so she didn’t stop, rubbing faster and fiercer until she came again, with the TV playing unseen in the background and the memory of Lane’s moans ringing in her ears.

**

For the next few days, Joan felt dazed and distracted; her mind stuck on the details of what she’d overheard. She didn’t know how she’d put these thoughts aside for so long. Yes, she and Lane were married, and yes, they were spending time together at home ( _his home_ , she corrected herself), but she had put concerted effort into not thinking about him in a sexual way, even before they started spending so much time together. Somehow she still remembered the first time he had kissed her in his office—how passionate it was, how unexpected. And they had gotten past that, and now he was the friend who brought her tea in the afternoons and joked with her about investment opportunities and played silly games with Kevin. Her friend. Her husband, on paper. That was all.

He’d sigh and groan and whimper when she touched him, pupils blown wide and his chest blotched all red and his hips twitching up and oh, god, _why couldn’t she stop thinking about this?_

She spent Thursday dinner feeling distant and removed, watching Lane cut up with Kevin as if she were watching a nature documentary on TV.

“Have I got something on my face?” Lane’s voice was very serious, but he poked at his lower lip with the tines of his fork, and smeared a little bit of potatoes onto the corner of his mouth, smirking after he did it. “I don’t think so.”

Kevin was howling with laughter. “Get your napkin!”

“I’ve excellent table manners,” Lane assured the little boy, holding himself very tall in his chair. “Don’t need it.”

Oh, my god. What was wrong with her? Even with a glob of potatoes on his stupid face, she still wanted Lane, even when he was being an idiot. Especially when he was being an idiot. She just wanted to lean over, whisper something dirty, watch him get all flustered and then put Kevin to bed and take Lane back to the bedroom and—

“Joan?”

She startled, and met Lane’s puzzled gaze. He’d wiped his face, at least, but he was staring at her in a concerned way. Beside him, Kevin looked annoyed.

“Mama, pay attention!”

“Everything all right?” Lane asked, eyebrows furrowing down. “You’ve been very quiet.”

“Oh,” she said tonelessly, putting a palm to her temple. Her heartbeat was thudding in her ears. “No, my head hurts. That’s all.”

He made a concerned noise. “Have you taken any aspirin?”

“It’s fine,” she sighed, motioning that he shouldn’t go get any, because he was already putting his napkin next to his plate. “It’ll go away soon.”

 _It will go away,_ she whispered to herself as she went into the bathroom after dinner and opened the medicine cabinet. Three extra strength aspirin would at least let her fall asleep after putting Kevin to bed _. It has to go away._

**

The next morning was a flurry of activity; Joan was trying to get Kevin dressed and ready for preschool while Lane was in the kitchen searching for food to pack for their lunches—she couldn’t believe he was packing them lunches, what kind of husband did that, she couldn’t even get Greg to fry her a pancake—when all of a sudden there was a knock on the door.

Lane got there first, and Joan knew exactly who it was the second he started talking. “Oh, erm, of course you—but it’s not a very good time, you see—my-my wife and I are just—”

“Mamaaaaa,” Kevin was tugging at the bottom of her dress, making a whining noise. “My stomach hurts.”

“—sorry, Mr. Pryce—only a few minutes—”

“Kevin, you have to go to school,” Joan took his little hand and moved it away from her dress. Some boy had said a mean thing to him on Tuesday, and so he’d been trying to get out of class ever since.

“But it really hurts!”

“Joan,” Lane led a frowsy-haired woman in a dark dress into the kitchen, whose wide face was creased with annoyance, and whose eyes were sharp. “This is Mrs. Lansing, our, erm—clerk. She said she has to conduct the interview this morning.”

“Mama! I don’t feel good!”

“You’re not staying home just for a stomachache.” Joan reached out to shake the interviewer’s hand, and kept her tone very businesslike. “Mrs. Lansing, I understand you have a schedule to keep, but early mornings are really not a good time for us. My son has preschool, and Lane and I both work.”

The woman was unbuttoning her thick coat. “It’ll only be a few minutes.”

Without warning, Kevin bent over double and threw up his breakfast on the linoleum, right next to Joan’s shoes.

Mrs. Lansing jumped back toward the kitchen doorway like she’d been pushed. Lane grabbed the trashcan out from under the sink, while Joan snatched up a roll of paper towels from the counter and put a few sheets over the puddle. Meanwhile, Kevin was milk-white and shaking, sobbing in between coughs, and Joan was trying to comfort him as best she could.

Lane was bustling the woman out the door, thank god. “Could you possibly—so sorry—thank you so much—”

Joan got Kevin cleaned up and settled in bed with some ginger ale, and when she emerged from his bedroom with a laundry basket in hand, Lane was waiting for her in the hallway, leaning against the doorway to the living room.

“Is he all right?”

Joan spread her hands in a kind of shrug. “Hopefully he’ll sleep. I’ll have to stay home, unless I can get a girl to come over.”

Lane nodded, still looking worried. “Do you think the interviewer will come back?”

“I doubt it,” Joan said. “Why?”

“Just wondering if I ought to stay, in case—I-I don’t know.”

“No,” Joan said, more harshly than she intended. She softened her voice. “You want to get sick, too?”

He looked like he was going to protest. “I don’t get sick.”

“Go,” Joan fixed him with a stern look. “We can’t both miss work.”

“Oh, honestly.” Lane was clearly unable to let this part of the argument go unchallenged. “I have an iron constitution, Joan. _That_ is not the issue at hand.”

**

Two days later, he was pale, clammy, and coughing into a handkerchief, sitting on the couch in his robe and pajamas with a thick blanket pulled around his shoulders. He couldn’t even get out of bed yesterday, and Joan didn’t feel much better. She wheezed with every breath, her hair was piled into a messy updo, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she was barely able to stand upright long enough to heat chicken soup on the stove. Her robe was untied in the front, revealing the same pair of ratty, worn pajamas that she’d been wearing since Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Kevin – god bless children’s cold and flu medicines – was out for the count in a sleeping bag on the floor, snoring away with his mouth hanging open.

“W—where are the noodles?” Lane rasped out, blinking up at her with a bleary expression after she shuffled back to the sofa with two bowls of soup.

Joan stared at him, and gestured with the bowl again. On TV, Gene Rayburn was leading a young waifish newlywed through the first round of _Match Game._ “They’re stars. It’s all we had.”

She’d actually bought it for Kevin, but the cans were sitting on the bottom shelf of the cabinet, unopened, and it was the only thing in the apartment that she thought they’d be able to eat.

“But there’s no—oh,” Lane started coughing again, and had to put the full bowl aside on the end table. When he could finally speak, he picked it back up, ate a spoonful, and swallowed in a resentful way. “We need veg, for Christ’s sake.”

“Shut up about _veg_ ,” Joan mimicked his pronunciation, and held her own bowl close to her chest, trying to keep the shivering down so she could lift the spoon to her mouth without spilling broth everywhere. “It’s hot soup. Be grateful.”

“I just like the other kind better,” he muttered, but he kept slurping down huge spoonfuls, so Joan just rolled her eyes and went back to her lunch.

“You want crackers?” she asked after a few minutes, weakly offering him half a sleeve of saltines that she’d been slowly eating since this morning.

“No.” He pushed to his feet, staggered a little, and grabbed his empty bowl off the table with a sniff. “Can’t even taste them.”

Joan thought he was going to go make some tea, but he came back with more soup instead. She put her empty bowl aside and stole his blanket before he got back to the couch. Served him right.

When he sat down, she jammed her toes into the space between his thigh and the sofa cushion, which made him flinch and startle.

“God! Your feet are freezing.”

“I’m cold,” she retorted, and covered a sneeze with one hand, withdrawing her legs so she could grab the bottle of Vicks 44 on the end table. She took a huge gulp straight from the bottle, and wiped her mouth with a crumpled tissue. “Will you move over?”

“Fine.” He scooted to the right as Joan leaned back into the sofa, almost spilling his soup. “Just give me back my blanket.”

She leaned over, and fluffed part of it over his legs, then felt too woozy to sit back up, letting her head loll into the cushion. “I’m just gonna—for a minute.”

“All right,” Lane said, and Joan let her gaze drift to the television, watching the oranges and yellows and blues mix together on the screen.

When she woke up, it was dark outside, and she was lying in a big bed, shivering so hard she had a headache and her teeth were chattering. All she could think about was how much she was shaking and how icy her hands and feet were and how she’d probably die like this—until she felt a big, warm hand on her waist, brushing the hem of her pajama top.

“C’mere. Warm up.” Lane’s hand was searing hot against her goosebumped skin, and she scooted closer to him without protest, felt the heat of him before they actually touched, like the glow around a hot fire in the summertime.

“Oh, god,” she breathed as she curled into his chest, exhaling a noise that was practically a moan. “You’re so warm.”

“’S the fever,” he mumbled, and she whined out an appreciative noise. Her hands, tucked between them, sought out the lapel of his pajama top and the t-shirt underneath as if by reflex. She could just sneak one hand underneath his pajama collar and get it warm, just for a minute.

He actually groaned a little when she did this. “Mm. Icicle.”

“Y-yeah,” Joan mumbled, still shivering. All she wanted to do was stop being cold, and go to sleep. “Is Kevin—?”

“Floor,” Lane let out a sigh, sounded more alert than before. “You came in earlier. We followed.”

 _Oh._ She should think more about that, but she was too busy trying to get warm again, concentrating on the heat radiating off of Lane’s body, and deciding she could get warmer if she got closer to him. She pulled her hands in toward her body and leaned forward, so her forehead was pressed against the top of his chest. Automatically, he wrapped an arm around her back. Joan felt her muscles relaxing already. God, it was so nice.

“English furnace,” she said a few minutes later into the silence, sleepy and delirious now that she had stopped shivering. Lane was warm and solid against her and the blankets were pleasantly heavy and his breathing was deep and relaxed.

“Shush,” Lane murmured into her hair. He sounded like he was almost asleep.

She closed her eyes again.

**

 _You have to get a hold of yourself;_ Joan scolded herself mentally, as she sat in the empty conference room. The morning after they’d slept in the same bed—they didn’t even _sleep together_ , she kept repeating—Kevin had bounded awake at 4AM, completely recovered. She’d heard him get up, and forced herself into the frigid air just to try and forget the feel of Lane’s body pressed next to hers.

_Get through the next few months, and everything can go back to normal. He’ll be a citizen, and you won’t have to live together, and you can get rid of this silly, stupid crush you’re indulging. That’s all it is. You’re exhausted, and you haven’t met anybody new in a long time, and you’re latching on to the first person that shows you a little positive attention. Grow up. Get over it._

Joan had noticed the way Lane had started looking at her—hope and affection lighting up his face when they talked during dinner, or were watching TV, or in the mornings as they were getting ready—and it made her ache. She would hurt him if she didn’t control herself, and she couldn’t stand that.

“Whoa,” said another voice, and Joan turned to see Roger framed in the doorway, the glass door swinging shut behind him. He gave her a significant look, eyes flicking down. “Red. High beams.”

“Jesus,” she hissed, glancing down at herself, and flushing pink. Roger was already shrugging out of his suit jacket. She snatched it out of his hand with an unhappy noise, and covered her chest and shoulders with it. Bad enough that Lane was doing this to her, but it was even worse that Roger Sterling had noticed the symptoms first.

“Well, you’re lucky I bothered wearing it.” He was already smug and grinning. “Who’s got you all worked up?”

“He’s legal,” she said sharply. Roger just laughed.

“Whatever. I know you’re only mean about the ones you like.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” she snarled, just before the door opened again and Lane walked inside.

Thankfully, Roger could always be counted on for inane conversation. “You really think it’s that cold in here?” He leaned back in his chair, eyes twinkling as he glanced at Joan again. “I’m burning up.”

She kept her expression perfectly neutral, and didn’t break Roger’s gaze. He knew exactly what that meant.

Lane looked concerned, like this was somehow his own fault, or like he should be doing something extra to fix it since he couldn’t give her his jacket, too. “I’m sure Bridget would bring something extra, if you needed.”

“I’m fine,” Joan told Lane without looking at him, as he sat down on her left side. To her right, Roger was still grinning. She felt like hitting him in the back of the head. Wipe that goddamn smirk off your face. “Thank you, Roger.”

“No problem, Mrs. Harris.”

**

Joan started staying in the office later and later. At first, she told Lane she needed to catch up on paperwork after being sick, and after another few days, she was staying late because Cutler was paranoid about Avon—because she needed the time to work ahead. Eventually, she just stopped making up excuses and told him she didn’t know when she would be home.

It didn’t keep Lane from asking questions. It didn’t stop them from getting into fights about the long hours, especially on the nights when she didn’t bring Kevin home. But as much as Joan loved the work, she also dreaded staying after dark. She dreaded coming home; feared the flutter and thrill in her stomach as she rode the elevator up to the apartment, or opened the door, or saw Lane asleep on the sofa, clearly waiting for her to get in. She dreaded the swoop in her gut when she saw whatever post-it note he’d inevitably left on the kitchen counter— _pasta in the icebox—wake me when you’re in—get some sleep!_

The last one was underlined twice.

She’d choke down what little food she could manage, mostly snacks she’d bought for Kevin, and go into their little room with the twin beds; lying on Nigel’s bed—she still called it Nigel’s, even after four months here—and willing herself to breathe normally. You’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. Start again tomorrow.

On a Monday, the third week of December, Lane called her office at six forty five. When she answered, he didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t worried.

“Joan, darling,” he said carefully, which made the hair on Joan’s neck stand on end, “are you just leaving? Mrs. Lansing’s here, and she’d like to see us.”

“Yes.” Joan shut her folio with a sigh. “I’ll be right there.”

When she opened the front door, she heard Lane and Mrs. Lansing talking in the living room.

“Well,” Lane’s voice was quiet, “erm, this is from our little—I like this one in particular. Although—I think that’s—”

“Hello,” called Joan, self-conscious as she pulled off her coat and scarf, and put her satchel next to Lane’s briefcase at the bottom of the rack. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

She walked into the living room, and noticed a leather-bound album sitting open on the couch next to the interviewer, but didn’t have time to ask what it was before Lane got up from his seat, met her at the doorway, and drew her into a kind of awkward half-hug. She bumped her cheek against his as he pulled back, like she had forgotten to kiss him and was trying to make up for it. God, it was awkward. Joan hoped the woman wasn’t writing any of this down.

“Mrs. Pryce,” she said instead, as Lane walked over to the drink cart, “your husband was just showing me some of your wedding pictures.”

“Oh, yes,” Joan didn’t even realize Kate had sent them the album. She hadn’t even looked at it. “My friend Kate put that together as a gift.”

“She was your only witness, correct?”

“Mm,” Lane still hadn’t poured himself anything. “Sorry, would you—like anything to drink?”

“No, thank you.” Mrs. Lansing was writing down something on a clipboard. Lane watched her with anxious eyes, and returned to the couch with only a glass of ice. “Does your son stay with your ex-husband some nights? I’m surprised he’s not here.”

Joan shook her head no. “Kevin’s at a sleepover tonight.”

_At my mother’s._

“He’s not in the picture,” Lane said gruffly, swirling the ice around in his glass. “Erm. Her ex.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Lansing, and wrote another note in shorthand on her clipboard. Joan recognized the pen strokes. “I see you haven’t decorated for the holiday yet. Do you celebrate Christmas?”

By the time Mrs. Lansing had left and Joan had closed the door behind her, the sense of unease lingered.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.” Lane broke the silence several minutes after the woman had left.

She glanced at him. He was standing at the drink cart again, with one hand resting on an unopened whiskey bottle, and wouldn’t turn around.

“Lane.” Joan was ready to make reassurances about the interview, or to coax a smile out of him, but he didn’t let her speak over him.

“And don’t say it’s all in my head, because I know it isn’t.”

Joan let out a breath, and pressed the heel of her palm to her face. God. She didn’t know how to talk about this. She couldn’t let things continue this way, but nothing would change just because she admitted the truth—that she’d developed feelings for him when this was nothing but a stupid arrangement. It had to keep going no matter what she said, or did, so she had to keep these feelings to herself. She couldn’t ruin this opportunity for him, not with his entire future on the line.

“We’re okay.” She willed her voice to be steady, although it felt very small. “It’s just me. It’ll pass.”

“But it’s—” Lane sounded exhausted. “You don’t have to do things _alone._ I—don’t you know that much?”

He wanted to help. He wanted her to talk to him. She blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill out from under her lashes. If she started crying, he’d be able to get the story out of her in seconds.

“It’ll be fine,” was all she said, risking a glance in his direction. He still hadn’t moved. “I promise.”

Lane cleared his throat, and finally pulled his hand away from the bottle, although he didn’t seem any more relieved. Two glasses clinked together as he moved away from the wet bar, his hands still empty. “All right.”

Joan still felt like she was in the middle of a bad dream, but nodded her head in a jerky way, reaching out to touch the side of his arm as he passed the sofa.

She couldn’t reach him. He didn’t stop walking.

**

“I don’t want to!” Kevin was screaming and flailing and crying as Joan tried to wrangle him into the hallway and get his coat on. It was Christmas morning, early. They’d spent Christmas Eve at Lane’s – had a tree and everything – but her mother had made a stink about Joan not spending the actual holiday _with her boyfriend_. Joan thought it would be easier to get Kevin away if they opened presents the night before. It was proving difficult.

“Kevin, for god’s sake.” She was trying not to scream and yank him up from the floor. It was Christmas, for god’s sake. “You need to get up.”

“No!” He was crying in earnest this time. “No, no, no—”

_“Kevin.”_

Lane’s voice was much sterner than usual, and to a toddler, probably seemed shocking—although Joan had heard much worse. But this initial sternness was tempered by the fact that Lane immediately sat down on the carpet next to Kevin and put a hand to the little boy’s back, softening his voice again. “Come now. Why don’t you want to go, hm?”

Kevin's little face was pressed against the carpet, still crying, and he mumbled something Joan couldn’t hear.

Lane tried again. “I bet you’ll have wonderful food. And the rest of your presents from Santa will be there, and—”

“I want you to come!”

Joan had to turn around so Lane wouldn’t see the fraught expression on her face, pretending to rustle through her large purse although she barely saw anything her hands touched.

“Well, I—I can’t, because my friend is expecting me at his Christmas. I promised that I would go there.”

Kevin made an angry noise.

“But it’ll go by in a flash,” Lane continued. Joan risked a look back at them. He’d scooped Kevin up into his arms, with one hand pressed to the little boy’s back, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor. Kevin had his face buried in Lane’s shoulder. “And then we’ll see each other here tomorrow, and you’ll get to tell me about everything you did, and who was at your Christmas, and show me everything Santa brought, hm?”

They probably wouldn’t see Lane for a few days. He was just buying time.

“And I shall miss you very, very much. Did you know that?”

One word from Joan could stop all of this. _Come over. My mother won’t mind. We’ve got plenty of food. Jim and Polly would understand._

She bit the side of her mouth so hard she tasted blood. _Don’t make this harder. Don’t say anything._

“I don’t like it,” Kevin grumbled, and Lane huffed out an amused noise.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He lowered his voice, although Joan could still catch every word. Maybe he meant for her to hear it. “Neither do I.”

When Joan glanced back at them again, Lane had set Kevin on his feet and was straightening his little collared shirt. Kevin was bracing both hands on Lane’s wrists to stay upright.

“Okay, sweetie,” said Joan without turning around, assuming a brighter voice. “Bring me your shoes.”

She got Kevin ready while avoiding Lane’s searching gaze. After she helped him put on coat and hat and gloves, and once she got herself bundled up, and Kevin’s bag in hand, she turned back to Lane.

“Have you got everything?” he asked, glancing around the foyer for any other bags. She nodded, and tugged Kevin forward.

“Come on. Tell Lane Merry Christmas, and we’ll go.”

“Merry Christmas,” Kevin was busy trying to tug off one of his mittens, but looked up for a second. “I love you!”

Joan’s gaze snapped to Lane. He looked thunderstruck, but somehow managed to find his voice. She didn’t allow herself to look at him too closely, or dwell on the softness in his eyes when he answered.

“And I love you.”

“Go give Lane a hug,” Joan prompted her son, and Kevin ran over. Lane knelt down, they hugged briefly, and then Kevin clapped his hands.

“Okay, I’m ready to go now!”

“Okay,” Joan said, taking her son’s mittened hand again. She gave Lane a smile as he straightened up, and assumed a more businesslike voice. “Well…”

“Erm,” Lane seemed like he didn’t know what to do, but they both stepped forward, and he put his arms around her in a hug. She couldn’t help closing her eyes; felt the warmth of him against her and thought for a second: _things could be different._

“Happy Christmas,” he said softly as he pulled back, and she tried to meet his eyes like usual—to smile at him, although it felt tremulous.

“You, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I basically wrote this chapter for two things: Joan's shocking comment and Lane and Joan being sick together. :) BUT I've also enjoyed writing lovesick Joan because it's so unusual for her to have feelings and not act on them. She's stuck in the analysis paralysis that Lane so often falls victim to, but it manifests in different ways for her, and that's been fascinating to construct.


	7. Chapter 7

_january_

New Year’s came and went, and a few days after the holiday, Joan got a call from an old friend.

“I’m in the city through the rest of the week,” Bob sounded pleased to be back, as far as she could tell. “Are you free for an evening, say, Thursday?”

“Well, I don’t know. What are you thinking?” Joan flipped open her personal planner. Thursday was always at Lane’s, so Kevin’s schedule would need to be rearranged. “Dinner? Drinks?”

“That depends. Will I get to see Kevin?”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Only if you come to the apartment—and you know that means seeing my mother.”

“Hey, I don’t mind that. I like Gail.”

“You’ll mind after ten minutes,” Joan said with a snort.

“I’m not kidding. Let’s have dinner. I could come over for a drink first, and then you and I could—I’d just really like to see everybody.”

“Okay.” Joan began to write the time into its little box, her pen scratching against paper as she wrote. “We’ll plan for Thursday. That’s fine.”

**

“Are you out of your mind?” Lane reached out toward his desk and flipped a single folder closed with one hand; papers whipped forward into their file before they were still. It was Tuesday morning; so early that yellow-pink light was barely filtering into the windows of Lane’s office.

“Excuse me?” Joan folded her arms across her chest. “It’s one night.”

“We specifically decided on a set schedule in order to prevent—”

“Don’t tell me what I agreed to, Lane.”

“What if the woman comes over?”

Joan set her jaw, furious that he thought she could ignore that part of the equation. “Tell her I’m out with a friend. Tell her whatever you want, for god’s sake.”

“She’ll want to know why my wife isn’t there.”

“So whither thou goest, I will go? I don’t have to follow you around like a stray puppy!”

“That is not what that means!” Lane pinched the bridge of his nose behind his glasses, which were slowly sliding downward. “You are supposed to honor the terms of our arrangement, you can’t just go off with some other—”

“I’m allowed to have a life outside of it!”

The floor was eerily silent except for the thrumming buzz of the computer servers, audible even with the door closed.

Lane’s face was pinched as he stared at her. His voice came out in a rasp. “And Kevin?”

Joan felt her chest constrict with pain, as if he’d wrapped a fist around her heart and started squeezing. She kept her voice low to disguise how much it shook. “You _know_ —you see what I—” she made a kind of wheezing noise, and looked away, clamping down on the sob that threatened to tear from her throat.

Lane was backpedaling, and sounded panicked. “Joan, I just—”

“Don’t!” She refused to let tears fall from her brimming eyes. “I can’t—I—”

“I only meant you can’t expect Bob Benson to—”

“Stop it,” Joan snapped, finally regaining her voice. She yanked up her satchel from the floor.

“But—what about tonight?”

“You figure it out!” She slammed the door behind her as she sailed out of his office; glancing left and then right to make sure the hallway was empty before she walked away, heels clicking fast against tile.

As she stormed down the hall and up the stairs, she didn’t see the young man crouched beside Lane’s secretary’s desk, clothes rumpled, his black hair gone wild, his eyes squeezed closed and a red pencil clutched between his fingers.

**

“Man,” Stan put the back of his hand to Ginsberg’s forehead, which the younger man immediately shoved away. Peggy snorted out an amused noise as she watched them. “You’ve been silent today. Are you sick or something?”

They were standing outside the conference room at ten A.M., waiting for the partners’ meeting to end. Ed and Mathis were late, not that it mattered.

“No!” Ginsberg scrubbed at his forehead with his shirtsleeve. When he lowered his arm, a bright red shiny patch had formed over one eyebrow. “You know, sometimes people can be quiet for better reasons than the fucking flu.”

Okay, that was weird. “What are you talking about?”

Ginsberg ignored him. A telephone was ringing behind them. Meredith answered it with her usual chirpy greeting. “Good morning, Mr. Pryce’s office.” Pause. “Well, hello, Buck! How are you?”

Whatever. Stan glanced at Peggy. She was lost in thought, with that tiny little wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. Her eyes darted back and forth and her lips moved soundlessly like she was reading from a page: the thing she sometimes did when she was stepping up for a big pitch and had memorized the elevator speech. And it looked like she was wearing lipstick today? Something was going on.

“Hey, Chief.” He nudged her with an elbow. “You get Ginzo’s bug?”

“What?” Peggy asked automatically, and then seemed to snap out of it. “No.”

“Okay, so what’d I say?” he teased, knowing she hadn’t heard a word.

“Just…” she let out a sigh, and flapped her hands in a distracted way. “Shut up for a second. I’m thinking.”

“Excuse me!” Meredith picked her way through their group with a message slip held between her finger and thumb. God, her dresses got tinier and tinier every week. This one was baby blue, had ruffles in the front, and looked like it was made for an actual eight year old. She opened the door, tiptoed through the drawn curtains, and disappeared. A minute later, she came back with Lane on her heels.

“And he—you’re not sure if they filed the motion—?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” She returned to her chair, as Lane opened the door to his office. “Line two.”

Hm. Legal stuff. Must involve his ex.

“Oh, my god,” Ginsberg whispered, like he’d just remembered something crucial that he needed to do. “Shit. Fuck.”

“Seriously.” Stan wheeled on Ginsberg. “What is with you today?”

“Nothing!” Ginsberg made a growling noise, scrubbing two hands over his eyes. Jesus. He was like an angry six year-old sometimes. “Just—I gotta—take a lap.”

“Make it quick,” Stan said loudly, as Ginsberg trotted towards the stairs. The kid shot up a middle finger in response.

**

Papers rustled on the other end of the line. “Just got back from court, thought I’d give you a call. You can tell your wife everything went great. Heck, I’d tell her myself, except her girl said she was in a meeting—oh, jeez.” Static crackled down the connection. “Well, this divorce is getting less mysterious by the minute.”

Lane tightened his grip on the telephone. His heart beat faster.

“Did he—did he sign it?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.” The other man let out a breath. “Also wrote a couple more words on here, if you catch my drift. You know. Rhymes with duck foo.”

It took Lane a moment to understand, and when he did, he turned his head away from the receiver to keep from cursing, as well, fury coursing through his veins. That—he gritted his teeth to censor himself—blackguard!

When he put the phone back to his ear, Buck was already chattering away. “Anyway. I’ve got another consultation scheduled in a minute, but did you want to talk about filing the injunction for adoption, or—”

“No,” stammered Lane, completely caught off guard, “I’d better—Joan will—want to hear the news before we take anything further. Today.”

“Okay, sure thing. I’ll put the letter in the mail right away.”

“Yes, I-I think that would be best,” Lane replied.

They said their goodbyes and hung up, and afterward, Lane stared at the door unseeing for several minutes, then promptly removed his glasses, leaned forward, and lowered his head to the desk. His hands grabbed the lip of the wood and his forehead balanced on the backs of his knuckles. He felt papers and open book spines and pencils and all sorts of detritus underneath his fingers.

Well. Joan had got what she’d wanted, and now the end of their arrangement was in sight, he supposed. Oh, god. He wasn’t going to be able to bear it. He already thought about her more than he could possibly say. Every time she phoned to say she was working late, or got up at two in the morning to finish something, or fell asleep over her files was another moment where he became even more determined: _someone must take proper care of you_. And having a child in the house again had become more precious to him than he had ever imagined. He had started to see children’s ads everywhere, materials for all sorts of toys or programs that he thought Kevin would like, or that they could all play together. He had dreams about Nigel and Kevin playing football in the park, or walking to school in the spring—dreamed about a bigger flat painted in bright colors, dressers covered in family pictures, and coming home with Joan every night. Waking up with her each morning.

_You are fooling yourself! Look at how she came into that last meeting, all smiles and charm, laughing with the others as if the row had never happened. She feels nothing for you. How could you ever hope to keep her?_

_But I could make her happy,_ another part of his brain insisted, remembering the night they’d shared his bed, and the way Joan curled so close to him in her feverish sleep, her head pressed against his arm and shoulder. The arm had gone numb, and she had actually snored like the dickens, which was hilarious, but also caused Lane to sleep rather fitfully. He just couldn’t bring himself to move. He’d closed his eyes and concentrated on how peaceful it was to have her next to him, even when they were both feeling so poorly. And when she got up to tend to Kevin, he’d felt her absence so keenly it had taken everything he had not to call after her. Come back. Come back.

God. He wanted to take her in his arms every night and show her everything he could never hope to say aloud.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

And the official notice was winging its way to them even now, giving Joan even less reason to delay. She’d got Kevin free of Dr. Harris, and if Lane got citizenship soon, that would be it. She’d cast him off and find someone else.

Oh, god. He can’t tell her today. He’ll do it tomorrow.

He can’t do it. He can’t do it.

**

Lane and Ken were standing in the corridor by the computer room, early Wednesday afternoon.

“Listen, are you busy tomorrow night? Cyn and I were gonna go out with one of our—do you remember—”

Lane was half-listening, and wasn’t really in the mood to do anything that night, especially since Joan would be coming over – he hoped – but before he could give an answer, there was a squeal of delight from down the hall.

“ _Lane!_ ”

A tow-headed blur nearly collided with his legs before Lane scooped him up into his arms, laughing as he spoke. “Well, hello there. Are you working here now?”

“No!” Kevin poked at the side of Lane’s glasses with a childish giggle, and then threw his little arms around Lane’s neck, which made Lane laugh again. “I just got done with school! Annie and I walked really far.”

“Oh, well, of course.” Lane realized he’d quite forgotten about Ken, and turned to the other man with a rueful smile, gesturing for Kevin to look over. “You’ve met Mr. Cosgrove, haven’t you? He works in accounts, too.”

“Kevin Harris.” The little boy stuck out his hand with a determined expression, nearly falling forward until Lane steadied the lad with a hand on his stomach. “Put her there.”

Lane had to fight to keep from laughing—he had to have learnt that from Gail—but Ken shook the lad’s hand in a serious way, and regarded the boy very nicely before raising his eyebrows at Lane, eyes dancing with mischief.

“Harris, huh? Bet your mom’s pretty proud of you.”

“I don’t know!” Kevin said with a shrug, and glanced back at Lane, who tweaked his little sleeve. Just down the hall near the doors to reception, a young woman in a long loose patterned dress was watching them with an amused look, carrying a child’s rucksack in one hand and a large carpetbag in the other.

“She is, and you’re doing well in school, aren’t you? Tell Mr. Cosgrove what you’re learning.”

“Lane,” the little boy said instead, his hands patting the side of Lane’s shoulder, “I have to tell you a secret! It’s really big.”

“Well,” Ken was grinning. “I won’t eavesdrop. But we’re on for Thursday, right?”

“Lane!” A little hand was now tugging at Lane’s sleeve.

“What—well, yes, I suppose it’s fine. Just leave the details with Meredith—”

“Lane!” Kevin was even more insistent. “You’re not listening!”

Ken was laughing as he walked away.

“ _What_ is this big secret, then?” Lane glanced back at Kevin, who was beaming in his usual manic way. His smile was quite contagious, really.

The little boy cupped a hand around his mouth in a clumsy fashion, and leaned over to whisper loudly in Lane’s ear. “I missed you.”

 _Oh._ Lane felt a sudden rush of tenderness. “And I’ve missed you.”

“Can I stay down here?” the little boy asked next. “I don’t go home until five!”

Lane frowned, motioning for the babysitter to come forward. He couldn’t remember this one’s name; Joan had to remind him about it nearly every week. “Well, you’ll have to ask your mother—or, or Caroline. Because this young lady’s got to do her job—”

“Annie, come on! We have to find them!”

Kevin was now kicking and fidgeting so much that Lane had to set him down, and as soon as the lad had both feet on the ground, he was running full tilt toward Dawn’s desk, and the young girl was calling after him.

“No running, Kevin! What did I tell you?”

“I’m not running!” shouted the boy. “I’m just walking fast!”

“You’re still— _wait_ —”

And they disappeared up the stairs.

**

“All right, Annie,” Caroline glanced at her watch. Ten till five. “You’d better pack up your homework before Mrs. Harris comes out and sees you.”

_And throws a conniption fit._

“Thanks. I just really had to get this done, you know?”

“Sure. And it was nice of Mr. Pryce to offer help.”

_And what Joanie doesn’t know won’t hurt her, all things considered._

“Yeah. Kevin really likes him,” the babysitter offered, as she stuffed papers into folders. “You mind if I run to the bathroom first?”

“Oh, I’ll grab him, honey; I’ve got to bring some files down to Meredith, anyway. We’ll meet back up here.”

Caroline walked down to the first floor, but when she got to Lane’s office, there was nobody at Meredith’s desk. She dropped off two folders, then stepped up to the door and knocked twice. When she got no answer, she turned the knob, walked into the room, and closed the door behind her.

Lane was stretched out on the sofa with Kevin curled up against his left side, both of them fast asleep, with a kid’s picture book propped open between them and a mess of papers and crayons all over the floor. Kevin was sucking one thumb and Lane had his free hand pressed to Kevin’s back. Wasn’t that the cutest thing.

_They were in Roger’s office. Caroline couldn’t understand why Kevin wanted to spend the afternoon with one of his mother’s coworkers._

_“Honey, I don’t know if your mother would like that. You’ll get in Lane’s way.”_

_“No, we have sleepovers at Lane’s all the time! Mama says it’s okay. Please? Pleaaaaase?”_

_Caroline had glanced at Annie for confirmation, trying not to let the shock show on her face. The girl had just nodded and lifted one hand in a shrug, like it was all old news. “He goes there three days a week.”_

_Zowie. Who knew?_ “ _Well, if Lane doesn’t mind, I don’t see why not. Um. Let’s not tell anybody else about your sleepovers, or they’ll all want to go, okay? Come on. Maybe we can get a piece of candy from Dawn on the way down.”_

_“Candy!” Kevin shouted, and Caroline just thanked her lucky stars that he didn’t start asking a bunch of other questions._

There was a Polaroid camera labeled _HARRIS_ on the end table next to the door, and before Caroline could think too much about it, she’d raised the camera to her eye, focused the shutter, and snapped a quick shot. It whirred something awful as it printed out the picture, but neither of the boys twitched. Caroline put it back, and put the whited-out photo into the pocket of Kevin’s open backpack.

They’d like that, when it developed.

“Mr. Pryce.” She stepped forward, and shook Lane’s shoulder. “Mr. Pryce.”

Lane stirred, and blinked up at her, then startled. Once he realized he still had Kevin with him, he moved more carefully, scrubbing his free hand over his eyes with a drowsy noise. “Wha—”

“You fell asleep,” Caroline said in a soothing way, like she wasn’t concerned and she didn’t know anything was amiss. “It’s almost five.”

**

“Hey, so how was Kevin, the other day? Guess he told you all about that big secret of his?” Ken was jovial as usual as they picked their way through toward the back of the restaurant—it was one of those airy, open places, with an outdoor patio. Not good for this type of weather, but the food looked all right. Lane liked pasta, anyway.

“More or less,” Lane said with an amused huff of breath, removing his fur hat, and then spotted Mrs. Cosgrove at a booth along the left wall, along with—hang on, who was that person with her? She looked very familiar; upswept blonde hair, elegant blue suit…

“You remember Faye Miller, right?” Ken asked in an undertone, as they waved at the two ladies. “The doctor with that consultant group?”

“Well, er, a bit,” Lane couldn’t help frowning. Why on earth would they bring him along to have dinner with— _oh, dear god._ The realization hit him like a freight train. “Ken. Tell me you didn’t…”

He turned an alarmed gaze on Kenny, who regarded it with a calm, raised eyebrow, and let out a deep breath, still looking very composed as he spoke. “Okay. Please don’t kill me. It was Cynthia’s idea, but it’s just dinner. No one’s saying you two have to get married. Just follow our lead.”

“Cynthia’s idea.” Lane repeated faintly, as they continued walking towards the table. Oh, god. Oh, no. No, no, no, this couldn’t possibly be happening. “I really don’t think—”

“Shut up. Be nice.” Ken muttered under his breath.

They arrived at the table. Mrs. Cosgrove got up and hugged him hello, then moved to greet her husband.

“Faye,” Ken dropped a kiss on his wife’s cheek before they both slid into the booth. “I think you remember Lane Pryce?”

The woman raised two eyebrows at the Cosgroves in what was probably horrified surprise, but she still smiled as she greeted Lane with a handshake. She didn’t get up from her seat in the booth.

“Yes, well. It’s nice to see you again, Lane. I didn’t know you would be here.”

This last remark sounded very pointed.

“Erm, yes, you—you as well. Hello,” he said first, glancing between the Cosgroves and Miss—no, Doctor—Miller with what he hoped was a friendly smile, and not a completely deranged expression. “It’s quite a surprise.”

“Won’t you sit down?” Mrs. Cosgrove asked, and glanced coyly at the empty seat next to Faye.

“Ah.” Lane swallowed. “Of—of course.”

**

“I can’t believe you didn’t call Mom on that.” Joan took a long sip of her wine, and set the glass down with a sigh. It was her third glass, and she was probably overindulging, but they were splitting a bottle. And Bob was just such a good conversationalist. She always enjoyed their dinners together. “She’s such a pill.”

“Gail just wants you to be happy,” he replied, his mouth lifting in a smile. “We both do.”

“Sweetie, I don’t think her dropping hints about your big promotion really counts.” Joan wasn’t worried about being overheard. They actually had a very intimate table, tucked into a quiet corner with only one other couple sitting nearby. It would have been a nice spot for a date, she thought with a sigh. “Although it was nice of you to get her a present.”

“Well.” He gave her a sheepish look, dark eyes darting to meet hers. “To be honest, I kind of picked up a little something for you, too.”

She raised an eyebrow. He didn’t carry anything in with them. Maybe it was a pair of earrings, or something small. “You didn’t.”

When he pulled a square velvet box from his jacket pocket, opened it, and set it on the table between them, she felt her heart beat wildly against her chest, completely baffled. Even as she stared at the pear-shaped diamond gleaming up at her in its yellow gold setting, it didn’t make sense, it—nothing about this was—

“Joan,” Bob said quietly, and oh god, how could he be serious? How could he be doing this? “God knows I’m not perfect, but if you would just take a chance on me, I promise I could make you happy.”

“What?” she asked, to keep herself from blurting out the other word. _No. No._

“We’d live in a beautiful house, and I’d have a great job, and you wouldn’t have to worry about Kevin growing up without a father…”

“But—” Joan forced herself to find the words. “Bob, honey, you—you don’t love me that way. It’s—I know that you don’t, and that’s okay, but I just—”

“Please, Joanie,” he whispered, and took her hand across the table. “I know that I might not—we might not have a conventional marriage, but we would always be such close friends. At the end of the day, we could have someone to come home to. We could be there for each other. Do you really want to be lonely forever?”

“I’m not,” Joan managed, with an odd hiccuping noise that she refused to let turn into a laugh, or a sob. “Bob, for god’s sake, you don’t even like women.”

“I like you,” he said simply, still holding her gaze, and my god, how could he possibly reconcile those two things? How could he think that a marriage without any romance – without touch, or tenderness, or passion – would be enough for her? Or for him? “And I like your family, and I just—I want that in my life. I could be that person for all of you. Don’t you see?”

“But you can’t love me,” Joan said loudly, and felt a lump form in her throat as she thought about Lane, and how affectionate he was, how kind and warm and funny. “Not the way I want. I—why would you want to live your life like that?”

“Joan, please. If you could only just…” Bob was pressing his other hand to their joined ones, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She was going to say it out loud. The words were bubbling up from some instinctive place.

“I’m with someone else,” was the first sentence out of her mouth as she pulled her hand away. “And it’s important, and I can’t marry you, because it’s him. It’s Lane.”

Bob stared at her with his mouth gaping open, but shut it fast, and to his credit, he didn’t say anything stupid off the cuff, like _you’re lying,_ or _prove it._

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said in a very small voice, gaze flitting down to her half-eaten salmon. The presents for Mom and Kevin—the table—the food; he’d planned every inch of tonight for this exact purpose, down to the last detail, and she hadn’t seen it. She was such an idiot.

“Lane,” Bob said slowly, like maybe she had meant to say another name instead, and got mixed up. “Pryce.”

Joan reached for her wine glass out of habit, but her hands were shaking so badly she knew she couldn’t pick it up, and folded them into her lap, instead. “I can’t explain how it happened.”

Friday nights spent watching awful Star Trek reruns: Joan throwing popcorn and booing at the TV in half-faked annoyance, and Lane laughing in shock as he turned to Kevin. _Your mother’s lucky to have gotten anywhere in the world with that attitude._ Evenings where she fell asleep on the couch in the middle of work and woke up with a blanket covering her. How Lane held her when she cried, and how she felt small calluses on his writing fingers when he took her hand. Eating breakfast together. Seeing him in his pajamas in the morning, when his hair was all mussed and he was sleepy and cotton-headed.

The way he always made her smile. The way he looked at her. The way he looked at Kevin.

“I—” Joan began again, not knowing what else to tell Bob, or how to warn him not to say anything, but he just put the jewelry box back into his jacket, then pulled his napkin from his lap and set it onto the table, avoiding her eyes.

“No. You don’t have to explain. Um. It’s my mistake. I assumed—well, I don’t know why I thought that. You usually tell me these things.”

“I want you to be with someone you love,” Joan said quickly. She couldn’t put it any plainer than that, but he just stared at her as if she had insulted him, and pushed his chair back from the table.

“Um. Let me take care of dinner. Stay if you want to.”

“Bob,” she protested. “Wait.”

“No, I—it’s fine. I’m fine.” He was pulling bills from his wallet. Joan watched as he put two twenties on the table, and put his wallet back into his jacket pocket. “I’ll call you before I…” he took a deep breath, the sentence trailing off into nothing. “I’ll just call you, okay?”

He was walking away before Joan had the chance to find her voice. All she could think was that it was a mistake. This whole evening had been a mistake.

_What did you do? What did you do?_

**

Lane gripped the phone in one hand, and the receiver in the other as he paced back and forth in his living room. From this angle, he could just pick out the empty glass and the half-full whiskey bottle that were propped up against the sofa cushions. “I just—it feels like I’ve done something wrong. And I don’t know what, and I don’t know why.”

“Lane, honey, what could you possibly have done?” Kate sounded like much of this was news to her. “It can’t be as bad as all that. Joanie’s not a cold person.”

“I don’t know,” he said again, mind focused again on the news of the injunction. He would tell Joan tomorrow; he really would. Maybe she knew about it already, and this was his punishment. “But now she’s out with Bob Benson, and I just keep thinking—”

His voice wavered. Oh, god, what if Benson was getting to hold her—touch her—kiss her? He was a young, handsome chap with a promising career. Lane didn’t think that he could bear seeing the two of them together; they would be the kind of couple that you see in magazines, young and beautiful and perfect. Why wouldn’t Joan want a chap like that instead of Lane? How could Lane ever measure up?

“Look, she would never two-time you,” Kate said with conviction. “You just have to talk to her. Tell her what’s wrong. She’ll listen.”

“I don’t know, Katie.” Lane said for the hundredth time, feeling small and pathetic and utterly, utterly lost. “Everything’s wrong. I don’t know what to do.”

**

Friday morning, Joan went to work later than usual, and was in the kitchen waiting for water to finish boiling on the stove. It gave her the added benefit of eavesdropping on Ken and Harry’s morning conversation. Cynthia had set up a blind date that had happened last night, from what she could parse out.

“Seriously, you asked him first? I’m single, too, you know.”

“Come on.” Ken took another drink of his coffee. “You hate her.”

Harry sounded skeptical. “So what? That’s not the point.”

“You hate her,” Ken repeated, more loudly this time. “Anyway. It’s not a love match. Lane was nervous, and Faye didn’t seem that game, either.”

“Come on. It’s Lane. Would anyone be?”

Joan moved before she had time to think, and suddenly the lid of her favorite teapot was on the floor in three big pieces next to the stove. She wanted to pitch it into Harry’s snide little face. Her hands were shaking with suppressed anger.

“Good job,” said Harry first, clueless, and Joan bit her tongue to keep from screaming. All she could imagine was Lane sitting next to some stupid blonde floozy with bad hair and a cheap dress.

“Uh, I think I’ve got some glue in my office,” Ken said next, his voice careful, but Joan was already walking out of the room, feeling a rising surge of hate for everyone in this godforsaken building. She found Meredith first, standing by the sofa with an armful of job files, and didn’t waste any time with niceties.

“Get a broom and go into the kitchen. Right now.”

Meredith’s eyes widened in fear, but she didn’t say a word, just put her files onto the coffee table and ran.

Joan resisted the urge to kick all those papers into the floor. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She was going to crucify the next person who got in her way.

**

“Joanie, what the hell are you doing?”

Kate didn’t just sound worried; she said this in the kind of low, hushed voice someone might use if they were getting mugged.

Joan scoffed into the receiver, shoving her full bag of potato chips aside. She couldn’t even eat anything; she was so upset. “Really? You left me two messages this morning, and all you want to do is yell at me?”

“I’m not going to yell,” Kate said calmly, and oh, god, she was using her better-than-you voice, the one she used when she was trying to discipline the kids in a nice way. Joan hated that stupid act. “I just think you have to face this head-on. You can’t keep pretending everything’s hunky dory.”

“Really? So what am I facing?” Joan said in a sarcastic voice.

“You got married,” Kate kept her voice quiet. “And now you have to figure out what happens next.”

“I know what happens,” Joan snapped automatically, feeling the first tendril of worry creep into her mind. “I told you, everything is fine.”

“Is that what Lane thinks?”

Joan felt her breath catch in her throat. “Excuse me?”

“You can’t keep pretending that nothing’s happening—”

“Pretend—oh, don’t you _dare_ —”

“I know you two are friends, but I think it’s past time for you to sit down and talk, because—”

“Did you talk to him?” Joan demanded. “Did he actually tell you something?”

Katie made a humming noise that meant she did, and he had. “I happened to call last night, when you weren’t home.”

“Oh, _bullshit!_ ” Joan tossed a pencil toward the far wall. “Don’t give me that story, Miss ‘I Accidentally Dialed The Wrong Number’ thirty weeks in a row! God, it’s so obvious!”

“Well, I’m not sorry,” Kate continued in a prim way, “because apparently you’re avoiding him, and I’m the only one dumb enough to tell you to your face that you’re wrong.”

“You know what?” Joan raised her voice, although it was unsteady. “I don’t care what you think. You don’t even know him, and—”

“So what? Are you just gonna let this pass you by? My god, Joanie, the man’s practically sick in love with you, and you just keep—”

“You don’t know him,” Joan interrupted with a growl, “and you don’t even live here, and you have no business telling me what is or isn’t happening in my own life!”

“I know what I saw when you kissed him!”

“ _For god’s sake, it didn’t even mean anything then!_ ” Joan screeched, and pitched her food into the trash. Chips flew everywhere but the trash can. “It was one kiss! It was three goddamn years ago!”

“Years a—oh, for fuck’s sake!” Someone else was mumbling on the other end of the line. Kate’s voice became more distant as she snapped at them. “Larry, this is a personal call, okay? _Go eat your sandwich in the goddamn hallway._ ”

“Since some of us are actually working,” Joan hissed, changing the subject, “and not sitting around at a shared desk like a moron with a—”

“Shut up, Joanie! Are you in love with Lane or not?”

Joan couldn’t even open her mouth to say _no,_ and the silence that hung over the line was damning.

“I can’t talk about this right now,” was all she managed to spit out.

Katie made an angry squawk. “You can’t—are you freaking—?”

Before Kate could finish the sentence, Joan slammed the handset down into the receiver, and didn’t let herself imagine what else her friend had planned to say. What the hell did Lane tell Kate? Why was he talking to Kate instead of her? And why was Kate so worried? Was this about the setup? Was it about Lane’s feelings?

_He’s sick in love with you!_

Her heart was racing again. The cold nauseous feeling she’d been fighting all day crept back into her gut. Oh, god. She’d wait until the end of the day, and then she and Lane could finally talk about this. Just get through the next few hours.

**

At four thirty, Joan was walking Clara through some basic dictation when she heard the approaching click of high heels against tile. Without warning, the door to her office was thrown open so violently it almost smashed into her coat rack.

Clara squealed, and whirled around. Joan felt herself go pale.

“Joan Prudence.” Her mother’s face was clouded with anger, chin lifted defiantly, and nostrils flared in a way that spelled big trouble. “You’ve got some nerve!”

Joan stared at her mother’s old-fashioned hat and yellow plaid coat in horror.

“Mom,” she began carefully, rising from her chair, but Gail cut her off with a raised hand, and walked inside with a disgusted noise. In one fluid motion, she opened her purse, pulled out a single torn-open letter, and tossed it onto Joan’s desk, staring back at her daughter with a furious expression.

 _Mrs. Joan Harris Pryce_ was typed in neat letters above her old address, the name standing out stark against the white paper.

“You want the world to hear all about it?” Gail asked in a deliberately slow voice, once it was clear Joan wasn’t going to say another word. “Or do you want to apologize in private?”

Joan gave her mother the cruelest glare she could muster. She wasn’t going to apologize for _shit._ “Clara, hold my calls. That’s all.”

Clara moved toward the door so quickly she was practically jogging, even in her condition. The second the door had opened and shut behind the secretary, Gail spoke up, one index finger raised in a warning gesture.

“Don’t you even think about lying to me, Joanie.”

“I’m not a liar!” Joan snarled first, folding her arms across her chest, and then they were off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. This chapter was a juggling act, because I felt like there were so many unaddressed pieces of their lives that were getting ignored over the first few months of their marriage. Since Lane and Joan are both people who can Keep Things To Themselves if necessary, it seemed like a lot of that avoidance just needed to boil over before they could even have a shot at addressing it. Trust Gail to barge in and fire the first shot!


	8. Chapter 8

Joan's voice was shaking. “You went through my things? Who the hell do you think—?”

“Oh, get off your high horse, Joanie, I can see right through that garbage in a minute. _You got married eight months ago, and you didn’t even bother to tell me._ ”

“Because it’s none of your business!”

“It affects my home and my time, it becomes my business." Gail let out an imperious huff of breath, and fixed her daughter with the fed-up look Joan had seen too many times as a girl. "What is wrong with you? Are you really this stupid?”

“I’m not stupid!” Joan slammed a hand down onto the desk, and met her mother's furious gaze. “I know what I’m—!”

“Ha! You took a husband who you only see three days a week, and you’ve apparently got a stack of mail from some lawyer and two government bureaus—”

“God! What is it with you? Do you ever keep your nose out of—”

“What is he after, your money? He’s a partner here, isn’t he?”

“Screw you!”

Gail recoiled from the words, emphasizing each word with a pointed index finger. “Why are you being so selfish?”

“ _I’m_ being selfish?” Joan repeated, floored. “You went through my room—my closet—my mail, for god’s sake!”

“You better believe it! And I found out my daughter’s too embarrassed to tell her own mother she made a bad decision. You really want to be divorced three times? You’re forty years old, Joanie! You don’t get any more chances!”

“Shut up!”

“Well, the only reason you’d hide him is because you’re embarrassed.” Her mother’s steely gaze flicked Joan up and down. “Or are you actually planning to keep this one?”

“Get out.” Joan rose on wobbly legs, and pointed a shaking finger toward the door.

Gail made an amused noise, and picked up her purse from the seat of the chair where she’d thrown it. “It’s too late to get an annulment.”

“I said _go_ ,” Joan repeated, unable to raise her voice for fear of crying.

“Fine." Her mother looped her purse through one arm. "You made your bed, you and your new husband can lie in it.”

**

Dawn caught the eye of Mr. Sterling just as he was walking down the stairs with his briefcase in one hand and his coat slung over his other arm. Upstairs, she heard a door slam closed.

“Incoming,” was all he said, pointing towards her and down the hall with two fingers as he strode away toward reception, smirking all the while.

“What?”

She heard loud footsteps clacking down the metal stairs, and looked up to see—oh, lord, Joan’s mother? The woman looked like she was fit to be tied. Something was very wrong.

“Gail,” she said immediately, raising a hand as she remembered Joan’s warning. _Don’t call her Mrs._ “Is everything all right?”

“Dawnie,” the older woman said, pausing on the landing. Dawn tried not to wince at the nickname, or at the angry flush on Gail’s face. “Lane Pryce and I have something to discuss. Excuse me.”

She kept walking, her steps sharp and purposeful. Dawn had her hand on the telephone and was dialing Meredith’s extension before she could think, glancing down toward the empty desk and praying the girl was nearby. Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone!

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pryce’s office!”

“Where are you?” Dawn hissed, trying not to draw anyone’s attention. There was no one at Meredith’s desk, and Gail was two feet from the door…

“Working on a quarter one memo. Where are—?”

“ _Lane Pryce_ ,” came Gail’s voice. She was inside. There was a clunking noise. Meredith must have dropped the phone. Dawn covered the mouthpiece and listened. From the hallway, she could barely hear what Gail was saying over the usual hum of the computer servers, but the woman’s voice carried through the handset with ease, loud and strident.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

“Now—”

“Excuse me!” Meredith spoke up in a high-pitched voice, but Gail steamrolled right over anything she had planned to say.

“Honey, you better shut your mouth, and shut it fast.” A pause. Her voice got lower, hard-edged. “Did you really think you could marry my daughter without me finding out about it?”

_Oh. Dear. God. She couldn’t mean—_

“I—Mrs. Holloway,” Mr. Pryce stuttered, his voice horrified and quiet. “We—it isn’t what you—”

“Oh yeah? Then what is it?”

Nobody spoke.

“You got married?” Meredith squeaked out into the silence, and Dawn winced. Oh, no. Oh, please don’t put that together.

But Gail just kept talking.

“She’s gonna spit you up and chew you out before it’s over.”

_Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh god._

“Now—now see here,” Mr. Pryce began, clearly trying to argue, but he didn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence before Gail was talking over him again. Maybe even to Meredith.

“Close your mouth, sweetheart. You look like a trout.”

Dawn hung up the phone so fast she almost knocked the receiver off the desk. Within seconds, Gail sauntered out of Mr. Pryce’s office as if they’d just had a twenty-minute conversation, and walked towards reception without looking back. Five seconds later, Meredith tottered out into the hall in a slow way, her face pale and mouth still open a little. The door slammed closed behind her. She glanced down at Dawn with a sort of stunned expression, eyes wide in shock, like she was going to say something out loud.

“Inside. Not here,” Dawn mouthed to the girl, already motioning toward the empty conference room.

**

Roger knew he’d waited around for a reason, so as soon as he saw Gail blow through the double doors, he got her attention with a raised hand.

“High ground this way.”

She let out an angry huff of breath, but stalked towards him. He kept his mouth shut. Trick was to act like you didn’t care if she said a word.

“That girl’s a moron,” Gail growled, slapping at the elevator button with one flat-palmed hand. “I’m done cleaning up after her.”

Uh oh. “What happened?”

The elevator bell dinged as it arrived.

“She married Lane Pryce,” Gail snapped as the doors opened, and she strode inside. Car was empty. “ _Eight months ago!_ ”

Joan—what? Roger’s first impulse was to laugh. “You’re kidding.”

Her expression darkened. He sobered up quick, and stepped inside, hitting the door close button before anyone else could get on.

Shit. “They really got married?”

“He’s using her for something,” Gail’s voice was acid as the elevator started moving. “Money. Sex. A green card. Who knows? She acted like I was crazy!”

“Come on. Bert’s meticulous about the legal stuff,” Roger watched as each number lit up, floor by floor. “Lane’s got a green card.”

“So you really think they’re happy as clams?” Gail’s voice got sharper.

She was clearly gunning for a fight, so he stayed calm. “He doesn’t have the balls to use anyone like that.”

Roger didn’t bother pointing out that it’d also be hard to fool a woman as canny as Joan. Holloways were stubborn. You had to let ‘em make their points first.

“Well, she’s acting like they built the wheel together, let me tell you. Defended him to death. Over her own mother!”

“Does she love him?” A surprising thought stuck out in Roger's mind. Eight months. Jesus. And his next thought was Kevin. “Does Kevin know?”

“Who the hell knows?” Gail hefted her purse higher onto her forearm. “I don’t care. It’s her problem now.”

The doors opened to floor ten, and she stormed out, past a couple of people leaving for the day with coats and briefcases.

“Come on. You’re not going down?” Roger asked, as Gail stepped out and glanced around.

She huffed out a breath, clearly angry that she’d gotten out on the wrong floor, but waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “I’m taking the stairs.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he called out, just as the doors closed.

**

“Did you know?” Meredith was pacing back and forth near the head of the conference table, wringing her hands as she walked.

Clara was sitting in the corner chair, with one hand pressed to her forehead, and looked exhausted. Dawn could see the swell of her stomach from here; the girl was getting bigger every day, even under those flowing dresses. “How would I have heard about this?”

“Her mother, of course!” Meredith made a little frustrated noise.

“Okay, look, this is only the third or fourth time I’ve met the woman—”

“Playing the blame game is not going to help.” Dawn chided gently, leaning back against the table’s edge. Her fingers splayed out against the wood. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to work around this situation.” She let out another breath. “I’d suggest you both share contact information, first. Make sure you have their right telephone numbers and addresses.”

“Are you sure they’re living together?” Clara asked, just as Meredith spoke.

“But they haven’t told anyone. Her own mother didn’t even—!”

Dawn gave the blonde girl a disappointed look. “That’s not our business.”

Clara pulled her hand away from her face, and glanced at Dawn. “Would Caroline have heard anything? I mean, if they really did…you know.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t sure about that.

Clara stared back at her like the solution here was obvious. “She’s close with Joan. Plus, she looks after Kevin sometimes. Kids have big mouths.”

“It’s possible.” Dawn pulled a thoughtful face. “But I don’t want the issue brought up unless she addresses it first.”

“Hi, Caroline,” Clara assumed a bright, airheaded voice. “Is Mr. Sterling busy? Did Kevin tell you Joan got married?”

Meredith suppressed a shocked noise.

Dawn decided it was too early to joke about this. “You know what I meant.”

“We should pinky swear not to tell,” Meredith said after a second, her eyes round and solemn.

There was a beat of silence.

“Or,” Dawn gave Meredith a tight-lipped smile as she spoke, “you could get Mr. Pryce’s schedule from his office.”

“Oh, that could work, too,” Meredith said instantly.

Dawn looked at Clara. “Do you have Joan’s?”

“Upstairs.” Clara gave a shrug, gesturing towards the doors.

“Oh, no, don’t go up there now!” Meredith looked panicked again. “She’s going to be very upset.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Clara said, like it was obvious. “I’m staying out of her hair.”

**

It began quietly, once Lane went into Joan’s office. There wasn’t any yelling. Just Joan sitting on the sofa with a single torn-open letter, and five wrenching words.

_Why didn’t you tell me?_

By the time he’d been able to sputter out a response to her cool accusation, the knot of ice in his throat had turned into anger.

Lane wasn’t even pacing, he was so rigid with anxiety. “I—I was going to tell you when you got in for the night, it’s not just the kind of news that you—”

“The one thing I asked,” Joan’s voice was barely at speaking level. “The one request I made _—_ you knew exactly what I wanted—”

“ _But I don’t know!_ ” Lane lost his temper at last. “I’m not like you, I can’t just separate everything that I do into little indifferent categories. I have real feelings!”

Joan tilted her head, staring at him as if she couldn’t have heard that correctly. “What?”

“Every week,” he said, rubbing a hand through the back of his hair. “All the time we’ve spent—how can you just stand there and tell me everything’s the same? How the hell do you do that—how do you get it out of your head?”

“I—“ Joan looked stunned. “You think I’m—”

“You have no idea, the demands you put on my shoulders—everything that I did to make this arrangement work, knowing that none of it mattered!”

Joan’s eyes widened, like she had the gall to be surprised by any of this. “Wh—why wouldn’t it matter?”

How dare she make him say it aloud! “Because you’re just going to leave me!”

A high flush had risen in her cheeks, but Joan still didn’t speak.

Lane couldn’t stop. “And now you’ve got what you wanted—you’re just going to throw me away.” Oh, god, the words were pouring out of him now. “You’ll cut me loose and—and pretend the whole thing never happened. Isn’t that what you were planning? Isn’t that what you always do?”

“What I—do?” Joan’s face was chalk white now, her eyes widening even further, and Lane felt a horrible little surge of victory in his chest. At least the barb had hit its mark. After everything they’d been through, she still couldn’t admit what he knew instinctively, even before her mother had pointed it out— _she was never going to stay with him. She was always going to leave him._

How stupid of him, to think he could prevent it! How ridiculous!

Joan’s desk clock suddenly chimed the hour, and the noise jerked them both back to reality. Lane set his jaw, and clenched one shaking fist at his side, trying not to lose his temper again. On the sofa, Joan was pale and visibly trembling. He was certain he’d never seen her this angry before; she was so enraged she couldn’t even speak. God, how she probably hated him. She’d throw something at him, and then she’d move out or get him fired again or any number of—of—

“I can’t do it,” Lane said finally, turning his face to the side so he didn’t have to look at her anymore. He’d ruined everything. “I—I’ve got to go.”

He stumbled out of the office and into a cab and back into the house without any real sense of where he was or where he was going. The second he unlocked the door with shaking hands, he rushed into the living room to pour himself a drink—and when it spilled everywhere, and he wasn’t even able to bring the half-full glass up to his lips first—he pushed the mess aside, sat down straight in the middle of the carpet and put his face in his hands.

**

“I’ll need you to phone this moving company tomorrow,” Joan handed Dawn a single sheet of paper. Stapled to the top of it was a worn business card, and written on the sheet was a long list—mostly children’s things, Dawn noticed. “Have those items packed and put into storage at that address.”

Dawn accepted the paper from Joan without a word, but couldn’t help glancing at the other woman’s face. Her eyes were slightly puffy and red, as if she’d been crying, although there was no water shining in them, or redness blotching her skin. Her face was powdered to perfection.

“I’m sure your mother will come around soon enough,” was all Dawn dared to say. There was no hiding that the woman had been furious, and she’d stormed through half the building before leaving. It wasn’t unreasonable to think she and Joan had gotten into some kind of fight.

Joan raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet.

Dawn cleared her throat, and decided to return to business. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No,” said Joan after a long pause. “You should go home.”

“Well,” Dawn wasn’t sure what else to tell her, if she didn’t want encouragement. “If you’re sure.”

She pulled the door closed behind her as she walked away.

**

_“Wait! Stop!”_

_Lane was running for the elevator, trying to catch Joan before she left forever, but the doors were closing already, and she was saying something he couldn’t hear—_

_“Dad, she’s gone! Why didn’t you stop her?” Nigel was standing at the end of the hall, holding Kevin the way someone might hold a leaky bin bag; straight out from his body, face turned to the side, with a revolted expression. The boy was crying and reaching out to be held and Nigel was going to drop him and the elevator had now moved and Lane wasn’t going to get there in time—his footsteps pounded against the floor as he ran—_

Lane jerked awake with a gasp, and discovered that the faint, constant noise was coming from down the hall. It was knocking, he realised as he fumbled for his glasses; someone was at the front door. The pounding was loud and steady, persistent. He pulled on his bathrobe in a hurry and when he opened the door, revealing Joan on the other side, his stomach flip-flopped in surprise.

She dropped her hand. He noticed the side of her palm was bright red.

He couldn’t believe she was actually here.

“You’ve—haven’t you—got your key?”

Joan lifted one shoulder in a shrug, voice dull. “Yes.”

Looking closer, he saw shadows under her eyes, and the same pallor in her face that she’d had before, when they were in her office. Actually, she was very peaky. It made him anxious. “Is everything—are you all right?”

“No,” she huffed, like it should bloody well be obvious. “We have to talk about what you said.”

After a moment, he motioned her inside, and shut the door. She took off her coat and scarf and tossed them into a messy pile at the bottom of the coat rack, not even bothering to hang them up.

“Joan,” Lane began, as they walked into the living room, trying to smooth down the side of his hair with one hand. “When I said—I didn’t mean to—”

She fixed him with a look that said she knew his next words were a lie, and that he might as well not complete the sentence. “You think that I’ll dump you the second you get your residency, because I got what I wanted, and I don’t care about your feelings. That’s why you hid the letter.”

He put two hands over his face with a groan. “God, it sounds horrible when you say it that way.”

“But that’s what you _think_ ,” she pressed, voice rising a little. “That I’m selfish. That I use people and then just” —she waved a hand between them—“freeze them out the second they stop being useful.”

“Well, not—not always,” Lane said weakly, ashamed that she could practically quote the words back to him. He never meant to…oh, well, fine, he did mean to say all those horrible things to her. _May as well stop lying about it._

With a sort of growl, Joan took a seat on the sofa, resting her elbows on her knees and briefly putting one hand to her forehead.

“Great.”

He didn’t know whether he could sit down next to her without having an object from the nearby coffee table thrown at his face, and so he stood very still, waiting for her to speak again.

“You’re not wrong,” she said finally—so quietly he could hardly hear her.

It was as if someone had drenched him in cold water. “What?”

Joan raised her head. Lane saw the faintest teartracks shining on one cheek. His stomach twisted unpleasantly at the idea that he’d made her cry. “I like getting my way, and I know how to get people to help me do that, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have feelings.”

“I know that,” Lane said immediately. “I do.”

“Clearly, you don’t.” She bit down on her lip, briefly, before speaking again. “Am I that contemptible?”

“No, of course not,” he rushed to say. “Just—it’s the action—nothing more.”

Was it her ruthlessness—the way she could be so kind to an important person one day, and cutting toward anyone else that dared to question her? The compartmentalization? He didn’t know how to explain why it bothered him, and couldn’t finish the sentence, but when she looked at him, her eyes were clear and her expression was steady.

“Lane, I used to let my husbands make decisions for me,” she said finally, twisting her hands in her lap. “I let them tell me where to work, or when to quit a job, or when we’d have children, even if it went against what I wanted. I let their opinions dictate my personal and professional goals. _I don’t do that anymore._ ”

“I understand,” Lane repeated softly. Or at least, he was beginning to.

“Do you?” When she looked at him, it was with a pleading expression, as if she were begging him to grasp what she meant. “Because I chose to marry you.”

He didn’t—no, he didn’t understand at all. “What?”

She huffed out a noise like a laugh, but upon further scrutiny, didn’t seem to be making fun of him. “I proposed to you. Why would I do that if I was just going to throw you away?”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Lane hid his face with a palm at the words, embarrassed that he'd said something so ridiculous. “I—I was being dramatic. It doesn’t—I only meant that we came into this arrangement for certain reasons, and we have now honored them. Isn’t that—isn’t it all you wanted?”

Joan’s face was turned toward the large windows, so he could only see her shadowed profile. “No.”

He heard himself speak as if from a great distance, confusion and shock quieting him. “Erm. Sorry?”

“I know I can be,” her voice turned low on the next word, as if she were mimicking his insult from last night, “demanding, but I want the people I care about to be happy.”

Was she trying to apologize? “What?”

“Oh, my god,” Joan sighed, and glanced back at him, her voice gaining an impatient edge. “Don’t you get it?”

“No, I do not _get it!_ ” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I really don’t understand.” She was staring at him. He kept going. “You’re talking about—I realize that you want things to go well between us, because you’ve made a choice, but that isn’t the same as being married.”

She was silent. He still kept going.

“And don’t argue with me, because it isn’t.”

There was a long pause. Joan pushed a stray lock of hair behind one ear before she spoke again.

“Do you want to be a real couple?”

What Lane wanted was to sink through the floor, hearing her repeat such a childish wish aloud. Oh, god. She’d seen the way he stared at her. How—somehow she knew, and there was no way he could—

“Oh—please don’t think you’ve got to—I-I never meant to make you—”

“I think it could work.”

He whirled to look at her so quickly he nearly wrenched his neck, eyes going wide.

She leaned back into the sofa cushions, watching his face, and spread her hands in a kind of helpless gesture. “Lane, I want to make you happy.”

Lane stared at her, mouth hanging open, words completely forgotten. She—she couldn’t actually mean that she—no, it couldn’t be.

“I—” he stammered out. “But—but what do you want for—for yourself?”

Joan regarded him for a long moment, her blue eyes very serious. Her gaze was so penetrating he nearly forgot to breathe.

“I have feelings for you,” she finally said. “I want us to be together.”

He couldn’t even speak; he was so shocked. That wasn’t what he had expected her to say at all. He’d really been waiting for her to tell him something along the lines of _I want us to get along,_ or _I liked the way things were before,_ or—or—oh, my god, was he still standing here like a silent little lump? Had he said anything at all?

“Er.” Lane was still trying to wrap his head around her words, and sucked in a shaky breath. _I have feelings for you._ “So we’d—you—you don’t want to get—divorced?”

His voice had got very small on the last word. One corner of her mouth had twitched up as he spoke, but she quickly sobered once he finished the question.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want that.”

“Right,” Lane said faintly, feeling as if he’d only just woken up. If they were _together_ , and planned to stay married (was that what she was saying??) Oh, god, the children would need to know, in the end. Oh, god. How would they tell them? What would they tell them? “Yes. Sorry. Erm. I think I—I need tea. Something to drink.”

Or sit down. That might work. His knees were like rubber.

Joan smiled at him again, now, and Lane felt lightheaded, seeing how much brighter her expression had become. “Good idea.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting at the dining room table together, stirring sugar and milk into two sturdy mugs, and opening the biscuit tin. Joan was now wearing her floral robe over her wrinkled blue skirt suit, and had both her hands wrapped around her mug. If it weren’t for the early hour, it could be any usual third morning.

“So, you—you want to try being—together,” Lane said carefully as she bit into the corner of a biscuit, trying not to stumble over the words. “You care for me. As—well, as more than—a friend.”

Joan nodded once.

Oh, god, why did that do such ridiculous things to his brain? He didn’t think he’d ever talked so frankly with a woman about…romantic expectations, or understandings. It was making him very nervous.

“But you said—” he forced himself to keep his eyes trained on the table, “—I just thought you didn’t like me—in that way.”

She let out a long sigh, although her voice had a note of fondness in it when she spoke. “I feel like I’m twelve years old.”

“I don’t,” Lane muttered darkly, which made her sigh again, and set down her mug.

“Okay. If you need to hear it out loud: I do want more than friendship from you. It would be wrong not to admit that.”

Every time she said the words, he wanted to shiver with delight. _She wanted him. It was still true._ “How—but for how long? When did you—?”

“I don’t know,” Joan pursed her lips. “I didn’t send myself a memo.”

He gave her an anguished look. “No, please don’t joke about it now.”

“Okay,” she said, stirring her tea again, and staring down into the depths of her mug. “Well, I don’t know when it started, but—“ she trailed off, and shook her head. “I don’t care when my friends go out with other people. You went out with that stupid doctor.”

Hang on—she was upset about the evening with Faye Miller? Neither of them had been remotely interested in pursuing things. She had even said those words verbatim, once Kenny and his wife had gone, and they were waiting for a taxi together.

" _Okay, I don't want to be rude here, but are you actually interested in going out with me?"_

_Lane stared at her in horror. "Certainly not." And then he'd nearly kicked himself for saying something so horrible. "God. I didn't mean—you're very—"_

_She'd already started laughing. "Oh, thank god."_

“That wasn’t—it meant nothing to me,” he said quickly. "I really—"

“Don’t ever do that again,” she interrupted, her voice gaining a steel edge, and he immediately shook his head _no_. Of course he wouldn’t.

“No, of—of course I’d—I don’t want to see anyone else, if we’re to be together.”

After a moment, Joan nodded, the motion very small.

There was a pause. Lane was honestly afraid to broach the next subject, but he had to; there was no sense avoiding it, now they were talking about fidelity.

“Am—am I going to have to worry about Bob Benson?”

Her eyes flew to his, widening in surprise.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he said quickly, and to her credit, she didn’t. “He’s part of your personal life, and Kevin knows him very well, and then he’s—all of the other bloody things.”

_Charming. Handsome. Boyish. Successful._

Joan let out a breath, tapping beautifully manicured fingernails against the table. Was he imagining the guilt in her eyes, or the slight flush pinking her cheeks?

“I told Bob we were seeing each other.” Noticing Lane’s startled look, she kept talking. “I shouldn’t have lied, but I did, and you should know that it happened.”

Lane had no idea what to make of that. She’d lied to Benson about their being together, when she had no reason to think anything romantic would come to pass. Why had she done it? Was it to protect her feelings—or to protect Benson’s, even? On further reflection, the boy was vexing, but more or less harmless, and if he had fancied her (Lane was sure that he did, because what red-blooded man wouldn’t be drawn to Joan?) then perhaps she had sensed that, as well, and had let him down gently, with a sort of white lie.

He was struck by the sudden thought that he and Joan would be seeing each other now, and felt his stomach swoop at the idea.

“Are you upset?” Joan asked, breaking his train of thought. He shook his head.

“No, no. I—I don’t mind that you said that. It’s—very nice.”

When she smiled at him, his face got very warm, and so he decided to muster his courage, and redirected the conversation.

“Erm. We—naturally, we don’t have to settle all the rest now, but I expect if we are to continue on, the same—erm, rules will be in place.”

Joan seemed perfectly comfortable discussing this. “Well, as I said, we’d be exclusive. Although Kevin and I might stay here for the time being, if that’s all right.” She glanced over at her teacup, and for a moment, her mouth twitched down. Her voice became flat. “My mother’s upset.”

“Of course you can,” Lane said immediately, deciding not to tell her that he was well aware of her mother’s opinion on the matter, and reached out to put his hand over hers. “I should like that.”

After a second of contact, she turned her palm up so she was able to grasp his fingers. Her voice had an uneven quality. “Um. I might bring more of his toys over this weekend.”

“Right.” Lane saw no problem with this. They could rearrange a few of Nigel’s things to make room. He wouldn’t need so many of his childhood belongings, the next time he visited. Surely some of it could go to storage, especially if Joan wasn’t going to be using that....

 _Bed._ Oh, god.

The two of them sat unmoving for a moment, before anyone spoke again.

“Just—one other thing,” Lane needed to say this before he lost the nerve. “Er. Not in our original agreement, but regarding certain, er, romantic aspects of—well, of relationships in—”

Joan raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean sex?”

Lane flushed red. At least one of them was able to drive to the point. “Erm. Yes.”

Her voice was gentler than he expected. She squeezed his fingers in a sort of reassuring way. “We ought to talk about it.”

“Erm. Well—yes. Good. I’m not saying we’re going to—” he waved a vague hand toward the bedroom, not allowing himself to be steered off course by his own fantasies “—right away, but it will be a possibility, now. And I don’t—it’s certainly not the most important part of a relationship, but it is a—a significant factor.”

He was prepared to make this particular argument, even if he could hardly stammer out the words. Joan was a woman, and Lane was a man, and they would be together, and she was free to choose the timing of it all so long as she understood that he would eventually need, well, something.

“Of course it’s important.” She sounded as if he was being dense. “Who doesn’t like sex?”

“There are people,” Lane said after a long pause, and he swallowed before he spoke again, willing himself not to think too much on that subject, or about Becca. “But I’m not one of them. It’s—I-I would like to think that we could—”

“Me too,” she interrupted, sparing him further embarrassment.

He huffed out a breath of relief, and suppressed the urge to put his head straight down on the table. “Oh, thank god.”

Joan raised an eyebrow at his reaction. “Are you surprised?”

“Well, yes. I mean, no. Er, I didn’t—I meant I didn’t only want _that_ to—to happen at a birthday or at Christmas or…whatever. Or at—I—sorry.” The breath he released was dangerously close to a laugh. “Bit warm in here.”

She tapped their joined hands against the table with an amused noise, then withdrew her hand, and took a small bite of her biscuit. “There’s nothing wrong with getting off on a regular basis.”

God almighty. Lane was glad they weren’t holding hands now. He felt like his entire body had locked up all at once, and his mind threatened to race toward all those dangerous corners. Don't digress. Keep to the topic.

“Does that answer your question?” Joan interrupted, voice innocent.

He glared at her, but the smirk that was threatening to take over her face told him she was trying to put him at ease.

“We’ll take it slowly,” was all she said, picking up her mug again. “Okay?”

Slowly. He could do that. He wouldn’t—well, he could—seduce her if need be. Make a grand gesture. “All—all right.”

He still felt like they had missed something. “Do we need to—is there anything else we should—?”

There was so much they hadn’t discussed – what they’d do at work, now, or what they’d tell Kevin, or what the sleeping arrangements might become. Would they go to dinner together now? Would they start telling other people: Lewis, or Jim, or anyone local?

Joan gave him a look that said it wasn't necessary, her hands tightening around her mug. “We’ve said what’s important. I think that’s enough for now.”

Oh. Well, all right. He nodded once.

Silence fell over the table again. Joan turned her wrist and discreetly checked her watch, eyebrows lifting in surprise once she saw its face.

“Almost five,” she told him.

God. They’d need to start getting ready for work in another half hour.

“Erm. Well, do you want to eat something?” Lane pushed to his feet in order to find a frying pan. “Still got eggs, I think.”

“Yes,” Joan said after a small hesitation, and got up, as well. “I’ll try that.”

She filled the kettle again, and put it onto the back burner. He put butter in the pan and was waiting for it to warm up when he noticed Joan was still standing very close to him, one hand poised on the counter, with her eyes fixed on the dining room table across the cramped room.

Watching her with her mussed suit and her pretty blue-flowered robe, he got that giddy breathless feeling again, the one that made his chest tighten with joy. _They were together. She had feelings for him._

Before he could think about what he was doing, he moved to embrace her.

“I haven’t actually eaten in—” Joan was speaking as he put his arms around her, but with the movement, she stopped talking. He drew her close, and pressed his cheek into the side of her hair, wordless, just savoring the fact that he was able to hold her. She was his dearest friend and _more than that_ and he honestly couldn’t believe that this was real, that he hadn’t dreamt it.

Joan was trembling. Her hands came up and splayed against his back, and then she put a palm to the back of his neck, and when they parted – god, he didn’t want to move away from her – there were tears welling in her eyes, and in his, too.

“Erm.” He mopped uselessly underneath his glasses with one sleeve, his voice a rasp. “Want to go steady?”

It was meant to be a very silly joke, but she made a little watery noise, and looked at him like he’d just said something very profound and beautiful. She cupped his face with one palm before answering. “Yeah.”

Her hand was soft against his stubbled jaw, and the grin on his face stretched from ear to ear.

Mouth quirking into a smile, Joan pulled her hand away and went to get the eggs, and so Lane turned back to the browning pan, blushing down at it like a complete fool as he watched the pat of butter melt and bubble from the heat.

_She said yes. She touched my face. She said yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, I tried to write the Important Relationship Talk from Joan's POV at first, and that just kept failing miserably. But it was good to get a window into Lane's state of mind here, so I went with it.
> 
> Also, I have no idea how many chapters this will be now. Probably 10-12, but every time I set a limit I just keep writing past it. :)


	9. Chapter 9

_february_

“Come on,” Lane hustled Kevin into the hallway and out of the kitchen. “Let’s go tie your shoes. Do you remember the little poem?”

“Rabbit runs around around, and then he tries to burrow down—”

 _And then he tries to loop de loop, and then he tries to thread the hoop._ Joan couldn’t help mentally chanting the rest of it as she put an apple and a wrapped sandwich into a paper lunchbag, but she didn’t have much time to dwell on that before the doorbell rang.

Lane answered it, and came back into the kitchen with Kevin on his hip and Mrs. Lansing on his heels. “Surprise visit,” he announced to Joan, waving the woman inside the kitchen. “Erm. Should I plan to come back?”

Mrs. Lansing shook her head, and fished her fountain pen and stenography pad out of her purse. “That won’t be necessary. I only need to speak with your wife today.” She paused. “May I use your powder room?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Thank you.” Mrs. Lansing excused herself.

“Wonder why it’s just me?” Joan asked once the woman had disappeared down the hall. Lane would have to take Kevin to school. “We told her early mornings were busy.”

“Well,” Lane seemed unconcerned, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “Hasn’t had much luck talking to you in the evenings, has she?”

Joan glared at him, and thrust the paper bag in his direction. Lane took this from her with a little humming noise, put it into his open briefcase, then closed and latched the top.

When he spoke, he used his flirtatious voice. “I like when you make lunch.”

Joan snorted out a laugh, and would have kissed him for that comment, if they hadn’t had company. They were starting to kiss goodbye in the mornings, before she took Kevin to school. Apparently, Lane took her at her word about _taking things slowly_. It was essentially torture. “Enjoy your sandwich.”

Kevin interrupted them before Lane could respond. “Mama, we have to go!” He stomped into the kitchen wearing his coat and his backpack. Joan suppressed a sigh as she zipped Kevin’s lunchbox into his backpack.

“Don’t pout. Lane’s going to take you to school today,” was all she said.

“Whoa!” shouted Kevin, leaping into the air in a clumsy way. His eyes bugged out, and he began to tug at Lane’s arm before the poor man had even gotten a chance to pick up his briefcase. Lane started laughing, and fumbled to grab it off the kitchen chair as they started walking.

“Well, wait, don’t break my arm…”

“I can’t do that! You’re huge!” Kevin protested in a high voice, as the front door closed behind them. Joan bit her lip to keep from laughing. Mrs. Lansing noticed this very quickly as she bustled back into the room.

“Something funny?”

“Oh, just the boys,” Joan put on her best client smile. “Would you like anything to drink?”

“Coffee, please.”

**

Carrying a full teacup and a small plate in each hand, Meredith was inching toward Lane’s desk, and watching him like a skittish lamb that had just been put in front of a starving wolf.

“I thought you might like a bear claw.” Her smile was alarmingly bright. “As a snack.”

Lane let out a sigh. He wished she were not so obvious in trying to return to his good graces—or better at pretending nothing had happened with Joan’s mother. “Whatever happened to ‘mustn’t gain winter weight’?”

A remark he was not soon to forget. Around the holidays, the girl had noticed him eating a couple of snack cakes here and there – a habit he indulged in very rarely – and one day, she took it upon herself to say he ought to watch his figure! As a result, he hadn’t so much as walked past the vending machine in weeks.

“Well, it’s almost spring,” she said after a small pause, placing the teacup at his left hand and the sweet plate right beside it, “and I imagine you’re eating well at—at home—”

Lane put down his wax pencil. Here was the crux of the issue. “Oh, good god.”

“—and so I just thought—”

Lane cut off the rest of this ridiculous story. “What are you really asking?”

His secretary seemed stunned that he had actually put this question to her aloud. Truth be told, he was rather surprised to have spoken so plainly. Clearly, this was Joan’s influence.

“Are you going to fire me?”

He blinked in surprise. “Why on earth would I do that?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper, looking around as if she were afraid she’d be overheard. “Because I know you and Joan got married.”

Oh, god in heaven. Lane kept his voice calm, and fixed Meredith with a warning look. Why could the girl not pretend the incident hadn’t occurred? “No, now, you’re not being fired. Although frankly I think it’s best we don’t discuss the rest.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Meredith said quickly, and took a seat in the chair across from him. He removed his glasses as she spoke. “Obviously, you’re very private about your personal life—and so is Joan—“

Good lord, she was still talking about it, why would this not end?

Meredith seemed determined to finish this sentence, “—but I really think—”

Lane sighed. “Is there a purpose to this line of interrogation?”

“Are you living in the same apartment?”

“I beg your pardon?” Lane was going to have to scold the girl. “What an insolent question!”

She blinked back at him in a confused way, which was possibly a good sign. If she had meant to be rude, she’d have probably been more alarmed. “I was just asking if you might have moved. I’d have to forward your mail.”

He relaxed slightly. “Oh. That. Well, no. My—the address is the same.”

“Oh, good,” Meredith smiled at him in a very sunny way. “And the same telephone number?”

“You may safely assume our contact information has remained unchanged, until you are told otherwise,” Lane reached out for his tea and took a tentative sip. It was very good. She was—dare he say it—improving. “Now. Are there any other messages?”

“Oh, yes,” Meredith bounced up onto her toes with a little pleased noise, as if this conversation had gone precisely as she had planned. “I’ll get them right away.”

As she bustled out into the hall, he took a bite of the pastry she had brought. Hm. It was still warm.

**

Clara checked another item off the long list on her steno pad. Joan always had a thousand messages. “Kirk Henderson called at eight thirty, regarding Thursday’s meeting. He’d rather do breakfast instead of lunch.”

“Offer him nine o’clock,” Joan said, after a moment of consideration. “The Stanhope. He’s usually tardy, so make the reservation for eight forty five, and make sure they’re willing to alter their eggs benedict, as he can’t eat meat.”

“Mr. Chaough wants to speak with you regarding Avon at two o’clock.”

“That’s fine.”

“And—um—I just needed to confirm your new mailing address.”

There was a long pause.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your,” Clara swallowed visibly, but continued talking, “um, so I can forward your mail. Now that you’re—or—or rather, if you’ve—moved?”

Joan fixed her with a hard glare. “What are you asking?”

Clara’s eyes widened in alarm. “Nothing.” She clasped her stenography to her chest like a shield. “I don’t mean to pry. It won’t happen again.”

Joan put on her glasses again, and made a vague motion toward the door. “See that it doesn’t.”

**

“Anyway.” Joan pushed her headscarf away from her face. She needed to put Kevin to bed, but she and Lane were still standing in the hallway discussing tomorrow’s schedule. “I think—”

“Mama,” Kevin tugged at her hand, trying to pull her toward the open door to his room. “I’m tired!”

A smile twitched around Lane’s mouth, but he kept his eyes fixed on Joan. “Bit impatient, hm?”

“Yes. But as I was saying, I think Pete will—”

“ _Mama!_ ”

Joan huffed out a sigh. Kevin had gotten into a frustrating stage of trying to talk over anyone else who spoke to her, and she was trying to break the habit.

She turned and fixed her son with a raised eyebrow, trying to keep her voice calm. “ _Kevin_ , we’re going to bed soon. Don’t interrupt.”

“No, Mama.” He pressed his face into the side of her leg, grabbing the bottom of her robe in two tiny hands, stomping his feet. “I want a night night kiss!”

“Lad, it’s all right,” Lane’s voice was soft. “She won’t forget.”

“Nooooo,” Kevin whined, still hiding his face. Joan repressed a sigh. If he decided to throw a tantrum right now, she was not going to be happy.

“Here,” Lane motioned that he was going to try talking to Kevin, and got to one knee with a grunt. Joan nodded, wordless, as Lane reached out to place a hand against the little boy’s shoulder, so Kevin had to turn to see him. “What’s the matter, hm? Don’t you want to have a little sleep?”

“I'm tired,” Kevin’s voice was quiet this time. Joan tried not to roll her eyes. He always switched to baby talk when he wanted to get his way—and Lane was terrible about indulging him.

“I know. It’s all right.” Lane patted the back of Kevin’s head, and got back to his feet, holding out his arms as if to pick the little boy up. “Come on. Your mother will get you tucked in, and we’ll get it all taken care of.”

“No, you do it!” Kevin grasped at Lane’s fingers. “You have to be there!”

_Oh._

Joan kept her voice light, trying to make sure she’d heard correctly. “You want Lane to help?”

“Yes!” Kevin stared at her like she was an idiot for not getting this.

Lane stood motionless, glancing from Kevin back to Joan, as if he was waiting for her to say something.

She cleared her throat, keeping her smile warm. “Okay.”

“I’m ready for bed now!” Kevin whirled around and ran into the bedroom.

Joan paused just before the doorway, keeping her voice low as she turned to Lane. Had she even asked if he was comfortable with that? “Would you mind?”

“No,” he said immediately. “It’s—how do you usually—”

“There’s a routine,” she told him, deciding it would be easiest to show him, rather than explain. “Come on.”

Inside the bedroom, Kevin was already climbing into bed, his little clothed bottom sticking up in the air as he wriggled onto the mattress and up toward his pillow. Joan had to bite her lip to keep from grinning, and reached out to pull the cowboy-patterned sheets, and then the thick blanket, over his little body.

“All warm,” she said playfully, and Kevin laughed as he rolled onto his back. “Are you ready?”

He held still for just a second as she leaned down, kissed his forehead, and smoothed his hair back from his face, and then he wriggled back into the blankets with a giggle.

Behind her, she could feel Lane’s eyes fixed on them, like he was trying to memorize exactly what to do. She reached out for him, blindly, until she felt two fingers brush the side of his hand. Don’t overthink. Kevin just wants you here.

Joan sat down next to her son’s feet, meaning that it was Lane’s turn to say goodnight. He stepped closer, and gave Kevin a soft smile. In one hand was Kevin’s favorite teddy bear.

“Someone else wanted to say goodnight, too.”

“Raisin.” Kevin clutched the bear to his chest, and then kissed its forehead and rubbed at its face in a clear imitation of what Joan just did for him, falling back against the pillows with a sigh.

Joan swallowed the lump in her throat; he hadn’t asked to sleep with Raisin for a few months. But Lane just leaned down and kissed Kevin’s forehead, as if they did this every night.

“Sweet dreams, little one.”

“You have to touch my hair,” Kevin said quietly.

“Sweetie,” Joan chided, but Lane reached forward, pressed his palm to Kevin’s cheek, and then threaded his fingers through the side of Kevin’s hair. The little boy sighed and closed his eyes.

“Will you stay for the story?”

“Course,” Lane turned to Joan for confirmation. She nodded. He drew his hand back. “I’m just going to turn off the light, but I’ll be right here.”

He switched on the bedside lamp, and then walked to get the overhead light. Joan picked up the book from Kevin’s nightstand as Lane sat down next to her.

A few minutes later, they were on their third reading, and Kevin had gotten very still, his breathing quiet and relaxed.

“Goodnight, nobody, and goodnight mush. And good night to the old lady whispering _hush._ ” Joan always wanted to laugh when she got to this part. She directed her next remark to Lane in an undertone. “He points at my mother.”

Lane made an amused noise.

“Mommy,” Kevin slurred, like he wanted her to get back to the story. She knew that tone of voice, though. He’d be asleep in another minute.

“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice slow and even. Now that he was drifting off, she didn’t even need to look at the pages. “So goodnight stars. Goodnight air.”

“And goodnight noises everywhere,” Lane finished in a low voice.

Kevin was quiet. The room was still.

Joan shut the book with a rustling noise, and held it in her lap with one hand, studying her son as he slept. Kevin was lying on his back with his face pressed against Raisin’s side, snuffling out the cutest little baby breaths.

She wondered what Lane thought of their whole routine. When she turned to glance at him over her right shoulder, she realized she’d miscalculated just how closely he was sitting. His face was inches from hers, and she couldn’t move backwards without disturbing the bed, or maybe waking up Kevin.

God, she didn’t even want to turn away. She couldn’t.

“Thank you,” she mouthed.

Without speaking, Lane leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers in a movement so chaste it could barely be called a kiss. When he pulled away, she saw that his eyes glittered in the near-darkness of the room.

For a few seconds they just studied each other, and after another moment, Joan looked down, toward the comforter. Her face was hot. She could still feel the softness of his lips against hers, and her entire body was buzzing. If they were actually alone together...

“Goodnight,” he whispered, and left the room without another word.

Once the door closed, Joan touched her fingers to her mouth with a shaky breath, and didn’t get up for several minutes.

**

A few nights later, after almost an hour spent trying to put Kevin to sleep, Joan turned off his light, and shut the door behind her with a quiet click, glancing down the hall toward the living room, where the television still glowed.

“Are you staying up?” she asked, once she got to the living room doorway. The ten o’clock news was playing, but Lane didn’t seem like he was watching it. “I was going to cut off the set.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lane said quickly. He hit a button on the remote to turn off the TV, and got to his feet. “Unless—is there anything you—”

“No, I’ll probably just read,” Joan waved one hand in a dismissive motion. “Or fall asleep trying.”

After the screaming fit Kevin pulled earlier, the latter was a safe bet.

Lane laughed a little. “Well, do enjoy that.”

Normally, she would have laughed, too, but a weird silence lingered.

“I hope you sleep well.” Lane walked forward, and clasped her hand once he was close enough, then stepped even closer and kissed her cheek.

“Do you?” Joan asked quietly as he pulled back, arching an eyebrow at him so he would get the point. _Aren’t you forgetting something?_

Recognition dawned on Lane’s face. “Ah. You want—”

He must have decided not to finish that sentence, because he cupped her face in his hands, and leaned in. Her eyes fluttered closed, and suddenly she felt his mouth brush over hers, once, twice, slow and deliberate. His stubble grazed her jaw and one of his hands was in her hair, and when he pulled back she actually swayed forward a little.

_Oh, god, she wanted to screw him right this second, why was he being such a goddamn tease??_

“Um,” she had to swallow to speak, and her voice came out high-pitched. If he wanted to wait any longer, she would need to get to the other side of the apartment, and fast. “Okay. Good night.”

A faint pink blush darkened his face, but he didn’t say a word about how unnerved she looked, although his smirk only added to Joan’s problem.

“Good night.”

**

Dawn stood in front of Joan’s desk, writing in shorthand as fast as she could as Joan dictated each paragraph out loud, her hand almost cramping as it flew across the page.

“Last paragraph. As always, Sterling Cooper and Partners holds the work of Chemical Bank in the highest regard. Your deep commitment to our agency and your efforts in both our private and pubic investitures—”

Dawn almost fumbled her grease pencil, but willed herself to stay calm. “I’m sorry. Can you go back a few words?”

Joan looked surprised, but did as Dawn had asked. “From the middle of that sentence…your efforts in both private and pubic investitures ensure that our companies will continue to—”

“Sorry. You—you mean _public_?” Dawn clenched the short nails of her writing hand into her fist, hard, to keep from laughing.

“Yes. Public investitures, Dawn.” Joan’s voice turned sharp, like Dawn was being an idiot. “What did you think I said?”

“Nothing,” said Dawn quickly, and continued writing.

**

Shirley opened the door to the women’s restroom, focused on the weird hiccupping sound; it sounded like someone was crying? When she walked inside, her first instinct was relief. Dawn Chambers was practically hanging off the edge of the sink, she was laughing so hard; one hand was balled against her mouth and there were tears streaming from her eyes, which she kept trying to dab away with the sleeve of her plain blue blazer.

“Oh, hi, Shirley,” was all Shirley said, her mouth lifting in pleased surprise. She couldn’t help grinning at the sight of sweet little Dawn Chambers in complete hysterics, and went to wash her hands at the free sink. The running tap would at least help muffle the noise.

Dawn couldn’t even get breath enough to answer back, and so it wasn’t until Shirley was fishing a paper towel out of the dispenser before the other girl was finally able to put two words together.

“Hi, Dawn.” Dawn took a shuddering breath, pressed her fingers to her mouth, then stood up, and wiped her eyes. “Lord. You wouldn’t believe the day I’m having.”

“Mr. Avery’s looking for you,” Shirley said first, but couldn’t help giving the other girl a wink. “I told him you were still with Joan.”

Dawn looked grateful. Shirley knew she was glad to have an extra few minutes away from that hateful moron. Weren’t they all? “Thanks.”

“Well, this might cheer you up,” Shirley kept her voice light, but quiet. The skirt of her short red dress swayed from side to side as she leaned forward. “After this morning’s executive meeting, a certain Englishman spilled half a box of coffee straws on the conference room floor.” Shirley let out an amused huff. “Now, he tried to pick some of them up, but that’s not the point.”

Dawn raised an eyebrow.

Shirley couldn’t help smirking, remembering how two spots of pink had blazed high in Joan’s pale cheeks. “Ms. Full Partner sat and watched him bend down around those chairs like the whole dessert cart had just rolled up to her table.”

Dawn pulled a horrified face. “Oh, lord!”

Shirley let out a snort. “Honey, I ran like you wouldn’t believe.”

They both burst out laughing. Dawn clutched Shirley’s forearm so hard it hurt in order to keep herself upright, and when they calmed down again, the look she gave Shirley said she understood exactly why Joan might be slanting sexy glances in old Lane Pryce’s direction.

That made one of them.

“Well.” Dawn checked her face in the mirror, and pursed her lips like she was fighting to stay serious. Her voice had returned to a demure murmur. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about that.”

Hm. She must be sworn to secrecy. And you didn’t cross Joan there if you knew what was good for you.

“Too bad,” Shirley examined the corner of one fingernail. The bright yellow polish was peeling off; it was a shame, she’d really liked this color. Noticing her hands were looking ashy, she reached out to take a little bit of hand lotion from the pump bottle, and rubbed it into her palms and wrists. “I thought it was pretty interesting.”

**

“Lane? You all right?”

They were sitting together on the couch after dinner, watching TV; the nightly news theme had just begun to play. He’d been quiet all evening, but when he turned towards Joan, he just looked droopy and exhausted.

“Head hurts.”

My little Eeyore, Joan thought with a smirk, but didn’t say it aloud. “I’ll kiss it and make it better,” she told him slyly.

He made a grumpy noise, like he thought she was being mean to him.

Joan reached out to put a hand against his temple, suppressing the smile that wanted to creep across her face. “Here. Lie down.”

Lane sighed, and leaned into her touch, and after a second, he scooted over and put his head in her lap, shifting until he was curled up on his right side next to her like a big cat. He was probably stressed out because he met with Pete and Harry at four. That was all Joan had heard from Clara this afternoon. But she didn’t make him talk about that yet, just turned up Chet Huntley as he and Cronkite discussed Washington correspondence, and idly carded her hand through the side of Lane’s hair until he fell asleep. It was nice, sitting like this with a beau—well, a husband. Just having someone to touch. It had been a long time.

When the news ended, she changed channels, and stayed on _What’s My Line_ until Arlene guessed the visiting actor—someone newer who’d just been on _Bonanza_. Kevin was running up and down the hallway flying one of his model airplanes, his usual sing-screeching getting louder by the second. The third time he did it, Joan got his attention with a growled _stop!_

“Go play in your room. Lane doesn’t feel well.”

“He’s sick?” Kevin looked horrified as he stopped in his tracks by the door. “Mama, I’ll help!”

She had no idea what that meant in four-year-old speak, but apparently, it meant getting a huge serving platter from the kitchen and piling it high with everything he could reach in the bathroom cupboard—packets of aspirin, ace bandages, Band-Aids, tins of salve that Joan was sure he’d drop and spill everywhere. But he kept tiptoeing back and forth down the hall and coming back into the room with a new prize, like a little helper mouse. She had to force herself not to laugh at him.

Twenty minutes later, Kevin went into his room saying he was going to make Lane something else. God, he was so funny. She felt the weight of the day pressing into her, and leaned her head back into the cushions. Maybe she could close her eyes for a few minutes, too.

She woke up to a firm hand on her shoulder, and the TV still playing, casting a muted blue-white glow over the pitch-dark room. Squinting, she realized Lane was standing in front of her. God. How long was she out?

“Hi.” She wiped the side of her mouth, and accepted the glass of water he held out to her, taking two big gulps and reaching to turn on the table lamp. The light made her blink. Her vision was fuzzy and unfocused. “You okay?”

“Mm.” He scratched his jaw, yellow light throwing his face into sharp relief. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and there were still creases from the blanket on the top of his cheek. “Kevin’s in bed.”

Joan hid her yawn with one hand. Oh. Lane must have tucked him in. “How long were we—?”

“Don’t know. Room’s a disaster,” Lane sat down beside her again. She put her water glass aside.

“Thanks for checking on him.”

He inclined his head in a nod, and put one hand on her knee, a little smile gracing his lips. “Course.”

Joan tilted her head to peer up at him through her lashes, feeling nervousness flutter in her stomach. He was watching her very intently, and his eyes kept drifting down to her mouth. She raised an eyebrow.

“You seem to be feeling better.”

“Much.” He was already leaning in, brushing a lock of hair out of her face as she closed her eyes. When they kissed she actually sighed into his mouth. They’d been so careful about getting physical right off the bat, but with the two of them finally alone, and Kevin asleep? Her heart was pounding.

_They didn’t have to hold back._

Lane opened his mouth, deepening the kiss, and Joan let out an embarrassingly loud whimper as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Oh, god. The stroke of his tongue was electric; it had been too long since she’d kissed anyone like this. She scooted forward until she could swing one knee over his lap to straddle his hips, settling down on top of him, enjoying the groan he gave when she pressed her body into his. God, he was hard. She wanted to touch him so much. He bent his head to her neck and began to kiss his way down her jaw, nipping across her neck, and she moaned when she felt his mouth graze the shell of her ear. Oh, just like—

“Mama,” a distant voice whined from behind her. “M’ thirsty.”

Joan pulled back from Lane with a gasp, braced her hands on his chest, and craned her neck to stare at the doorway as best she could from this position. Kevin stood there in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes with two fists as he frowned at the two of them. She could tell he was only half awake.

“Okay,” she said breathlessly, trying not to shift too much in Lane’s lap. He was practically using her as a human shield at this point, his forehead pressed into her neck, trying to be quiet as he caught his breath. “Well. Um. Let’s get a cup of water, and tuck you back in. Come on. I’ll follow you.”

“What’re you doing?” Kevin mumbled, still squinting at the bright light.

At this, Lane lifted his head, his face pink with embarrassment. Joan quirked a knowing glance in his direction, but decided to keep the explanation simple.

“Giving Lane a good night kiss.” She squeezed Lane’s bicep to let him know she was going to get up, her voice carefully light. “Good night, honey.”

She rose up onto her knees, moving backwards so she could stand up. Lane made a noise like this wasn’t the best idea, but after she was on her feet, she pulled the blanket down from the back of the couch, and pushed it in his direction. It wasn’t like they were naked. Everyone was decent. Kevin was barely coherent. It was fine.

Her knees were a little shaky, but she’d live.

She placed a hand to Kevin’s shoulders and led him firmly down the hall. He stumbled next to her on clumsy little legs. “Here we go. Back to bed.”

When Joan got back to the living room, over thirty minutes later, Lane was asleep, and this time she just covered him with a blanket, cut the set off, and turned out the light. But she did make it in Lane’s bed before she went to sleep—twice.

**

Thursday night, Joan was in the lavatory getting ready for bed, and as Lane waited for her to emerge with a clean-scrubbed face, wearing her robe and pajamas, he tried to gather his courage to ask her a simple question.

It had been months of her sleeping in a child-sized mattress, sharing a room with a very restless, often fussy toddler, or staying on the lumpy sofa, where it was always horrid and freezing—a fact he unfortunately knew from extensive personal experience.

Lane did not want Joan to feel compelled to stay in the same bed with him (although they had done it before without issue!) but he just thought it might be more comfortable. Not as lonely as the sofa, either, and then he could lie next to her and feel her beside him and he could kiss her until she made that little whimpering noise, and then—oh, god, he was getting off track.

The light flipped off, and Joan emerged, winking at him when she caught his eye. He loved seeing her so soft and playful like this; it was a side of her he felt very protective over because she so rarely showed it to anyone.

“Want me to leave the light on?” she asked.

“Erm,” Lane was talking before she had even finished the sentence—before he had even decided what to say to her. “Well, no. I-I was wondering if you wanted—and you certainly don’t have to—but you could stay in here. Tonight. With me. Erm, only for—for sleeping, mind you.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Promise to keep my hands to myself.”

The smile she gave him now was practically wolfish. “Honey, you’re not the one I’m worried about.”

It took Lane several seconds to get his brain back in functioning order, and once he thought he’d finally done it, Joan was still studying him, her head tilted a little. She wore an expression so intent it sent his heart skittering into a fast rhythm.

Slowly, not breaking his gaze, she untied her robe so that it hung completely open in the front, and although this exposed nothing to him but the front of her worn blue pajamas, her hooded expression, combined with the suggestive play of her hands on the edge of the silk fabric, had his full attention.

“Kiss me,” she said first.

He crossed the room. At the first brush of his mouth against Joan’s, she shivered, and reached out for him. Lane tried to restrain himself, and kissed her softly at first, little teasing kisses that made her shudder and sigh. He’d pull back only to give her another, and then another, and after a while he lost count, loving the way her soft beautiful mouth felt, and the way she kissed him back so hungrily. One of her hands was resting on his arm, and the other grasped at his hip.

Suddenly, Joan pulled away, her face bright red. He felt a stab of worry in his stomach until she spoke, her voice raspy. “More.”

Lane wasted no time with questions. He kissed her again, harder this time, and then began to nip his way down her throat, suckling at her pulse point until she gave a gasp, and fisted the hem of his pajamas in two hands.

“That’s it,” he murmured, dizzy from the faint smell of perfume and soap on her skin as he continued to caress her. He moved one hand to push her silk lapel aside, traced over a bit of her collarbone with his tongue.

She arched her back with a hiss. “D—don’t stop.”

Oh, my god. Lane felt dizzy with excitement, and before long he’d got most of her shirtfront undone, fumbling at the small buttons with shaking hands. Her knees buckled as they stumbled back toward the edge of the bed. They now balanced against the side of the mattress, barely upright, Joan pinned against him and his hand dipping under her clothes to stroke her bare breast, the nipple hot and furled hard against his palm. She was panting for breath, now, shallow and quick, and he was touching her—and she kept encouraging him!

“Oh, god,” she breathed, as he captured that nipple with his mouth, the texture so soft and rough, alternating mouth and tongue and the smallest edge of his teeth. Her hands dug into his shoulders, and he couldn’t help but grunt when he felt the sharp prick of her fingernails at his back. She kept making these beautiful noises, little moans and gasps that went straight to his cock. “Lane, please.”

“Anything,” he gasped against her skin, and then suckled her so hard she cried out. When he tore his mouth away, she arched her back up with a whine until he bent his head to the other breast, to give it equal attention. “Let me—”

He repeated the motion, alternating back and forth between her breasts for a long time, until she was so worked up she was begging.

“Jesus,” she sobbed, whimpering in the back of her throat, and he groaned at the wildness in her voice, pushing his hips up against her leg in an attempt to find some relief. “Oh, my god, Lane!”

“Yes,” he growled, taking her in his mouth over and over until she was so breathless she couldn’t even moan. He was still rutting against her leg—he needed, he _needed_ —and she was shaking so hard he thought she might come, or even fall off the bed, babbling, breathless. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined—oh, god, all he wanted to do was make her feel this way every minute. He brought a hand up to pinch her other breast as he continued his attentions, which actually made her yelp.

“Ah! I—I—”

He raised his head to look at her, still rubbing the pad of one thumb across her nipple. Joan’s hair was mussed all over and her top was open from the waist up, exposing bare skin, blotched red—utterly beautiful in abandon. Her chest heaved with each breath and her hips kept wiggling against his and he was never going to be able to last, seeing her so close to the edge, devouring her. And he wanted _more_.

How could this not be enough?

“P-please,” she panted, urging Lane’s head back down with one hand in a way that made him moan, “oh—” Lane kissed. “—yes—” Lane licked. “Just—god— _oh!_ ”

Lane suckled her hard like before, rolling her other nipple between his fingers as her nails dug into his shoulders and her body spasmed and shuddered— and suddenly he was coming, weak-kneed, head pillowed against her breasts as she trembled beneath him. It took him a long time to collect himself, but when he could finally speak, he needed to make sure she was satisfied, and lifted his head.

“Did you—do you want—?”

She shook her head, and blew out a breath, still trembling. “That was—”

Her gaze traveled downward to where their hips were pressed together, and he blushed hot all over when she noticed the small wet patch on his pajamas, and raised a curious eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he whispered. _Couldn’t wait._

An easy smile tugged at her mouth, and she patted his chest with a boneless hand. “No. I just wanted to see you.”

Lane couldn’t keep the shock from his face.

“Well, don’t look so surprised,” Joan started giggling in a kind of helpless way, covering her mouth with her fingers. “You’re a big tease.”

“I—?” Lane was laughing, too. “How dare you.”

“All those little kisses,” she was shaking with mirth, eyes sparkling as she looked up at him, “and all that _attention_ …”

He moved her arm out from between them so it was stretched over her head, and leaned down to kiss her. “Well, it serves you right!”

She wound her arms around his neck, and they moved backwards onto the bed as they kissed, lying side by side for a few moments until Joan pulled away, gently tracing her hand across one side of his jaw. Lane couldn’t keep the grin from his face, and nuzzled down against her neck with a little sigh, his eyes fluttering closed. Oh, god, it was like a weight had been lifted.

“Feel better?” she asked, one hand sliding over his shoulders.

He huffed out a breath, smiling against her skin. “Fantastic.”

“Oh, but maybe we should share the bed tonight,” she said in a wry undertone, her voice sweet in his ear, and Lane began to laugh again.

**

When he arrived to work the next day, the creative hall was raucous. Ed was carrying Mathis down the corridors on his back while Mathis whooped and shouted. Stan and Ginsberg were giggling and exchanging a series of complex high fives with each other and with a couple of secretaries and with – Lane peered through his glasses – a long-suffering Miss Olson, who was leaning against the doorway to Joan’s—well. Dawn’s office, now, wasn’t it.

“Second year in a row, man!” Stan called out from the middle of the hall, as soon as they spotted him. The fringe on his jacket flew out around him as he moved. “We’re on a hot streak.”

Lane glanced at Meredith, who was sitting at her desk. She gave him a fond look as she explained what was clearly meant to be obvious. “The Clio nominations!”

“Ah.” Lane smiled at her, and promptly dropped his keys. Whoops. He raised his voice so the others could hear him. “That’s very well done.”

“Don’t encourage this,” Peggy called out, but she was smiling, and Stan was already walking toward Lane with a grin on his face.

“Come on, high five!”

“Ah. Well, then.” Lane raised his hand as if he was asking a question, but when he tried for the slap, their palms didn’t even connect on the first go.

The other chap laughed, clearly not bothered. “No, man, you gotta line up the elbows. Like this.”

They tried again, palms connecting with a loud smack. Stan even thumped him on the shoulder as he walked past, so vigorously that Lane’s glasses nearly flew off his face.

“I’m gonna find Pete. He’ll flip his shit.”

Lane was grinning again as he pushed his glasses back up toward his nose. Well, it was usually a good sign if creative was in high spirits—and he was certain the noise would die down soon enough.

“You look rested,” Meredith said as she unlocked his door, and hung his hat and coat onto the nearby rack. “Are you having a good morning?”

His smile got wider. “Wonderful. And how are you today, dear?”

**

“All right,” Clara flipped her stenography pad closed with an impressed face. “That’ll keep you plenty busy for now. Remember, you have your first appointment at eight thirty.”

“How could I forget?” Joan was practically smirking.

“One last thing.” Clara handed Joan the final message slip; the one she’d saved until Joan had run through her schedule for the day. “Um. Your mother left a message with the service last night.”

Joan heaved out a breath, and for a second Clara was afraid she’d get yelled at, but all the other woman did was point to her inbox. “Just put it there for now.”

“Oh. You don’t want to call back?”

A personal question. But weirdly, Joan didn’t call her on it.

“No,” she said again, as Clara dropped the slip into her inbox. “Thank you.”

A little silence fell over the room.

“I’d like some tea, please.”

“Of—of course,” Clara sputtered, and left the room immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously Joan isn't shy when it comes to sex, but throughout the show, she worked very hard not to mix her romantic life and her personal/professional lives. None of her temporary boyfriends met Kevin - even Bob was kept at bay for a long time, and they became good friends. It seemed like she would still be very careful about integrating those worlds, despite the situation, so I decided this was a nice chance for me to write some UST. (And you know Lane was probably super nervous/counting down the days until he could seduce her without getting in trouble!)
> 
> Next chapter should be up fairly soon. I think this fic counts as an OctNoWriMo bc I wrote like 40K last month...


	10. Chapter 10

_march_

 

Lane woke in the middle of the night to find the rest of the bed was empty—no Joan. Upon realizing there were no lights on in the toilet, or in the hallway, he groped around on the nightstand for his glasses, and decided to investigate. She sometimes had to tend to Kevin during the night, but usually if that were the case, he’d have woken up, or heard something.

As he padded down the hallway in his bare feet, Lane saw that Kevin’s door was closed, and heard no commotion that suggested the lad was awake, although the telltale scent of tobacco alerted him to movement in the living room.

When he turned the corner, and saw Joan sitting on the sofa in the dark, wearing her glasses and with a lit cigarette in one hand. A fairly full ashtray sat on the nearby coffee table; she must be restless. But even with his specs, he couldn’t quite gauge her expression from this distance.

“Can’t you sleep?” he asked first, walking closer.

Joan put her lit cigarette into the glass coaster, exhaling a long breath. “Did I wake you?”

Lane shook his head. He rarely indulged in the pipe, these days, but it wasn’t as if the smoke bothered him, or as if he did not know about her cigarettes. He was merely surprised by the insomnia. Joan was not a restless person by nature—and usually she was too exhausted by day’s end to stay awake past nine or ten o’clock, unless they stayed up for other reasons, or she had trouble putting Kevin to bed.

Standing next to her, he noticed she was fairly pale, and the slight furrow between her brows had deepened a little. What was she worrying over?

“That was empty when I went to bed,” he said first as he sat down next to her, gesturing toward the ashtray in a sort of careless way.

Joan shrugged. He pressed on, and leaned forward to drop a quick kiss against her shoulder before he spoke again.

“What’s keeping you up, hm?”

His hand now rested on her knee. Joan made a little harrumphing noise, but did not push him away, which he thought was a good sign. She rubbed at her eyes under the lenses of her glasses, the frames going all crooked with the motion.

“I talked to my mother,” she told him finally, pulling her hand away from her face. “Before I left work.”

Ah. Lane tried not to react visibly to this news. As far as he knew, since the day Mrs. Holloway had rampaged through the office, she and Joan had barely spoken save for a few disastrous phone calls. Kevin had even noticed the rift, now—kept asking why he couldn’t go to his grandmother’s, and if Joan was _mad at her._

“Oh?” His thumb brushed back and forth across the fabric of her pajamas, which were all bunched up under the knee, as if the bottoms were cut too small.

“She’s being an idiot,” was all Joan told him, her jaw clenched a little, but Lane noticed the telltale slump to her shoulders, and how quiet her voice had become, and so he decided to hold his tongue about the rest. Gail was a sore spot of conversation at the best of times, and frankly, it was not an argument he felt like having at this hour. He wished he knew exactly why they had fought again, other than the patently obvious.

“Oh, I am sorry, darling.” He moved his arm so his palm was pressed flat against the middle of her back.

“It’ll be fine,” Joan said in a small voice, but after a moment, she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder, near his collar, her other hand coming up to rest just below his pajama lapel.

Lane rumbled out a sigh, and settled back into the sofa cushions, drawing Joan closer to him with one arm. From this angle, he could just make out the dim glow of the streetlamps below their window. “Course it will.”

**

As soon as Joan stepped through the doorway to Roger’s office, three faces turned to glance at her. Roger and Lane were looking over a bundle of papers and magazines, while Pete was pouring himself a drink.

“Is Cutler at lunch?” she asked first, shutting the door behind her.

“I don’t know,” Lane glanced to the others for confirmation. "Did either of you...?"

Roger just snickered. “Captain Ahab’s busy chasing the white whale.”     

She rolled her eyes. God. The man lived and breathed Phillip Morris, as if they stood a chance with any real cigarette company, after Don’s stupid op-ed.

“So which whale are we chasing?” she retorted.

Roger opened his mouth to answer, but Pete held up a hand before the other man could speak.

“Please do not answer that.”

“Jeez.” Roger handed a file of papers to Lane. “Tough crowd.”

Pete set his drink aside. “Roger, they called us. It’s twenty million in billings. We cannot derail this opportunity with one of your off-color jokes.”

“That counts as a pun, you know,” Roger answered without looking up.

Lane met Joan’s eyes with an exhausted expression that said Roger and Pete had probably been bickering like this for at least twenty or thirty minutes.

“Roger, please be circumspect.” She took a seat, and decided to cut straight to her next point. “Have we decided if we’re bringing Ted in?”

Pete’s face got pinched. “Forget Ted.”

“I thought you two were copacetic?” Roger adjusted his glasses with a hand. “Weren’t you just in here telling me how great he is?”

“By comparison to Lou,” Pete sniffed. “Which is no comparison at all.”

Joan fixed Roger with a knowing look. “Ted just took care of a personal problem. He’s distracted.”

Roger frowned at her like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

Her eyes widened, and she tried to prompt him silently. How did he not hear about this? It was all anyone talked about for months. “The divorce?”

“Shit. Wait a second. I thought he and Ann went to that counseling ranch?”

“ _Nan,”_ Pete corrected immediately. “That was months ago!”

Lane looked embarrassed, removing his glasses. “For god’s sake, Roger.”

Joan let out a small sigh, and waited for the other admonishments to stop before she spoke again. “Yes, through their church. They still got divorced. I hope you weren’t stupid enough to say anything to him.”

Roger pulled a guilty face. “Does Christmas count?”

Jesus. She shook her head. _Should have seen that one coming._  Lane was the next person to speak. “Do we know if he’s all right?”

“Obviously, we know nothing,” Pete interrupted.

Joan glared at him. He needed to stop being so snappish. “Maybe you know nothing.”

“All right, listen up,” Roger held up his hands, like he was trying to broker a truce. “No Ted. We’re sticking to the topic. Just—everybody cool your heels for a second.”

A loaded silence fell over the room.

“Erm. What’s the approach?” Lane broke it first, glancing at Roger with a quizzical expression. “For the initial conversation. Since it’s not—you thought it best to gauge interest before we took any further action.”

“First date,” Joan and Roger said simultaneously.

Lane raised his eyebrows.

“Drinks and hors d’hoeurves,” Roger clarified, looking at Pete. “It’s fun. You remember wanting casual?”

Pete let out a scoff. “What I want is to take them to dinner first. They deserve to be—”

Joan waved away his suggestion. “Do you also want them to dump us for looking too desperate?”

Pete’s expression turned sour. Lane hid a snicker.

“You know it’s a delicate account,” Joan folded one hand over the other, trying to manage the tension in the room. “And they may be hesitant. We can’t just expect to wine and dine them like a pair of Mississippi rubes.”

“Uh, Joanie, technically, they’re District rubes.”

“Julius graduated from _Howard_ ,” Pete snapped, glaring at Roger. “May I remind you just how much his family is worth?”

“Which is why need to keep the atmosphere casual,” Joan insisted in a low voice, not breaking Pete’s gaze. “Julius has too many people eyeing his pockets—and he may not trust us right away. We’re not asking for a commitment yet. Just drinks.”

Pete folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t want them to feel cheated. He’s a very important part of the Negro—”

Joan interrupted him before he could finish. “Please stop ending every sentence with _the Negro community,_ like you’re such an expert _—_ ”

“Well, he is! I specifically gave you that article so you could—it astounds me that you haven’t taken the time to—”

“Pete. Joanie. Shut up and fight about this later.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up.” Joan retorted instantly, feeling anger course through her chest.

“Wait, just—stop it, all of you,” Lane held up his hands for peace, imploring the three of them to be quiet. “We ought to discuss—if we are to keep the casual approach, how should the conversation go?”

“Strategy, yes,” Joan agreed with a sigh, and gave Lane an apologetic look. That was close. “Thank you.”

Pete pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Yes, thank you for asking the incredibly obvious.”

Roger just grinned at Lane, like he shouldn't worry about anything Pete said. “Come on, sheriff. Westward ho.”

Lane rolled his eyes. He was probably tired of the cowboy jokes. Roger made them constantly; she had no idea why. “Wonderful.”

**

_Lane watched Roger with a resentful look as the man poured whiskey into two glasses, but he pretended to cast it at the surrealist painting hanging on that wall._

_“Okay, listen,” Roger handed a glass to Lane as he walked back to the sofa. “I’m a man; I can admit I was wrong. Last time we tried this, I really screwed the pooch.”_

_“You told me the purpose of a client dinner was to consciously woo the client,” Lane said acidly, swirling the alcohol in his glass as he spoke. “Leaving him with an extremely unfortunate impression, not to mention—”_

_“Oh, come on. That was just Pete talking shit.”_

_"You don’t know that,” Lane muttered._

_“Come on, that asshole was too stupid to pull a piece of used chewing gum off his dick. What does he know?”_

_Lane clenched his jaw, and glared at the doorway._

_“We approached this from the wrong angle, that’s all.” Roger sat down next to Lane on the sofa. “You can’t be the fun guy.”_

_“What are you talking about now?” Lane felt his mouth tighten into a thin, sullen line. He knew how to have fun, for god’s sake. “Just because I don’t go around—”_

_“Just hear me out. There’s a certain personality, when you have to sell to people all the time. It’s not always about being glib.”_

_Lane studied him for a long moment, and let out a frustrated sigh. A personality that he did not possess, apparently. “Outgoing, I suppose.”_

_“Reckless shitheads. Love making sales, hate following stupid rules.”_

_“For god’s sake, those rules are in place for a reason—”_

_Roger talked over him, gesturing toward him with an open hand. “Which is why you’re a money man, because you play by the book. Every so often, you break with tradition, form a new company, whatever.”_

_“Not_ whatever—”

_“I know, I know, I know. Shit. I’m not saying this right. What I’m trying to say is, we called the wrong play the first time.”_

_Lane took another large gulp of his whiskey. “And which play would you now suggest we use?”_

_“We’ll come straight off the beat.” A grin had spread across Roger’s face. “Good cop—” he gestured to Lane again— “bad cop.” He gestured toward himself._

_Lane didn’t speak. Roger kept talking._

_“Basically, you tell them the rules. I stick around and tell ‘em which ones they can break.”_

_Lane still said nothing._

_“Come on. Bert and I sold to clients that way for years. You get to pitch a couple innings, make a few jokes, and then you get to go home early—plus you don’t have to put up with the maintenance bullshit. It’s perfect for you. And you need visibility right now, because right now you’re just the guy who does the numbers.”_

_A muscle was jumping in Lane’s jaw. “You said yourself, this arena was not my speciality.”_

_“Who cares what I said? Just try it,” Roger insisted. “You get to bone up on your elevator pitch, and I get to work with somebody other than Campbell or Spooky Jim. It could be a lot worse.”_

**

“Mikey, wait up!”

Kevin didn’t even bother to say a proper goodbye to Lane or his mother before he began sprinting across the blacktop toward the other little boy, who waved and grinned as Kevin ran over.

“Oh, he’s got another friend.” Lane felt very proud as he watched the two lads poke and prod at each other’s heavy coats and rucksacks, clearly ready to peel them off and run around. A young teacher shepherded them inside the front door before they could flee toward the playground.

Kevin came home every day chattering about all his little schoolmates, telling them about another child he’d spoken with or ate lunch next to or shared a toy with – so many names Lane couldn’t even remember them all. So different from his own experiences at school—thank god.

When he looked over at Joan, her mouth quirked into a smile. “Do you have any meetings this morning?”

Lane glanced down at his suit as if it would tell him what was so amusing. Nearby, a harried mother in a heavy coat was chasing her child across the playground, a lost mitten clutched in her hand. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I want to stop at the apartment before we go to work.”

Hm. It would make them very late. “Did you forget something?”

Joan’s smile grew wider. “No.”

“Then why would we need to go back?”

Her arched eyebrow seemed to say he wasn’t getting what she was asking, but it wasn’t until she put a hand on his arm and cast a lingering glance down his body that he finally understood, and gulped.

My god. She couldn’t even wait until tonight. Did she wake up this morning, needing it—needing him?

The thought of her sitting next to him in the cab—soft thighs pressed together, wet for him, aching to be filled—stirred excitement in his blood.

And it was seven thirty in the morning!

“Lane?” she asked again, interrupting his line of thought. Her eyes practically danced with excitement, the question obvious. _Do you want to?_

“Sorry. Yes.” His palm hovered just behind her elbow as they began walking toward the street, already eager to touch her. “We shall address that.”

They ended up sprawled on the floor just beyond their bedroom doorway, Lane flat on his back on the carpet – jacket gone, shirt open, and pants around his ankles – and Joan on top, wearing only her bra, with her hosiery and knickers all tangled around one knee. She rode him quick and hard like she was taming a wild stallion. Lane bucked up under her, flushed and babbling as they moved together. He couldn’t stop talking; he clutched her hips and rump with desperate fingers.

“Oh, god—feels so good inside—”

Joan leaned forward and sealed a kiss over his wet parted mouth as she kept working herself on his cock, until he pulled away with a groan, breathing raspy and gutteral, eyes squeezed closed.

“Joan, I’ll—I’m nearly—”

She was making this high keening noise, hips jerking forward in an uneven rhythm now, and Lane stiffened underneath her with a cry, pulsing hot and wet into her. Clumsy fingers found her clit, pressed against it with the back of his knuckles, and suddenly she was clenching around him like a poised bowstring, taut and shaking and sobbing out a noise that was almost his name, before collapsing forward into his chest.

They lay like that for several minutes, wheezing for breath.

“Oh.” Joan was still winded. “That was—just—”

Lane brought up a hand to stroke her back, chuckling a little. “Good?”

“Yeah.” She patted his shoulder with a hand as she talked, sounding dazed. “Um. In a couple minutes—I want—one more time—”

“M’kay,” Lane said absently. His hand was idly tracing over the curve of her waist, fingertips soft against slick skin. Joan shivered at the touch.

He made an intrigued noise. His hand dipped lower. Her hips jerked forward.

“Ah!”

**

When Lane got to the top of the steps, Clara was nowhere to be seen, but the door to Joan’s office was ajar, so he rapped twice and stepped inside. They’d been planning for Kevin’s birthday party. Lane hoped he wouldn’t spend an entire Saturday watching a group of small children terrorize their home, but when four year olds and sweet cake were involved, bedlam of any sort was a safe bet.

Joan was in the middle of a phone call, and put her hand over the receiver as he walked closer, mouthing a name: _Andy_. Probably about their lunch. They’d been scheduled to go two weeks ago, and had to cancel, and then Andy’d come down with the flu, and they’d had to keep resetting the date ever since.

“Yes, we’d still love to catch up,” Joan said, motioning Lane over and writing the word _Friday?_ on her notepad. Lane nodded once. She tapped the paper with her pen—a sign that she had heard. “If you have time Friday, that would be perfect.”

Behind her desk, sitting on the long table, were two small flower arrangements. First, the one he’d picked out: some pretty orange and pink flowers that had reminded Lane of their wedding, with a blue bow tied around the vase. Kevin had requested there be something blue, at any rate.

The other arrangement was a bundle of white and yellow roses—so fresh they were still budded, and tied with a pink ribbon. Lane couldn’t help peeking at the florist’s card, clipped straight into the bouquet. _To a swell mother! Love, Kevin._

Once Joan had hung up with Andy, Lane finally voiced the question. “Erm. Are these from Gail? They’re—” unexpected, he wanted to say. “Very nice.”

Joan’s gaze snapped to his, and she actually flushed a little before she spoke. “Kevin’s father.”

Lane’s eyes widened. That would be an unprecedented gesture of goodwill, given all the pettiness Dr. Harris had displayed up till this point. “Really?”

“Don’t ask,” was all she said, shrugging as if she got flowers from her ex-husband all the time. Meaning that she did not want to speculate about it.

Lane was still reeling. As far as he knew, the man had never given the slightest indication that he cared about Kevin, or his ex-wife, for that matter. Why should he send her flowers now that his legal hold on his son was gone? What purpose would it serve? Did he now regret agreeing to it? Did he regret letting Joan go? Or leaving her to get remarried?

“The pink ones are my favorite,” Joan told him after a moment—which, as obvious and placating a compliment as it was, still pleased him. God, he was hopeless. “Can we talk about the party later?”

“Oh—of course.” Lane tapped the edge of her desk with two fingers, as if trying to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. “Erm. When you have time.”

**

“Wait, I can’t mess up my hair,” Joan breathed between kisses, her hands tangled in the back of Lane’s hair as they stumbled toward their bed. They were almost naked except for his underwear; their lunch meeting was in an hour, so this had to be quick.

He just laughed, lay back onto the pillows, and pulled her down on top of him. Both of his hands slid down her lower back to cup her bare cheeks. “Well, then, you get to be on top.”

They began to kiss again, more passionately this time. Just when Joan rose up onto her knees, reaching for his waistband, he stopped her hand.

“Don’t.”

Her brain was foggy with lust. “What?”

Lane was watching her with an intent expression, like he was calculating several different angles in his head. “I want to try something. Erm. You’ll have to sit up. Spread your legs a bit.”

Joan snorted. “You really know how to woo a girl.” She moved her hands down her body until they rested on her thighs, not sure what he wanted to try until he slid under her like some kind of amateur mechanic, smirking like an idiot as he disappeared from view between her thighs.

She felt flutters of arousal in her stomach. Well, it was clear what he wanted to do. “Honey, you look like you’re—”

The rest of her sentence was swallowed up by an obscenely loud moan as Lane angled his head up, leaned forward, and licked into her, the flat of his tongue swiping what felt like every single nerve ending in her body. She swayed forward, her hands automatically wrapping around the lip of the headboard.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” she hissed, her hips canting forward against Lane’s jaw. She felt him groan against her—and then his tongue flicked inside her, slow and purposeful, which made her whimper and bite her lip.

He didn’t stop; kept licking and sucking and teasing her for a long time, until Joan’s hips were rolling into his mouth in a frantic way, her hands spasming against the thick headboard as it hit the wall in a telltale rhythm – _thwack thwack thwack_ – oh, fuck, this was—he was—so good—

“Jesus, Lane, oh my god, now—”

His moan buzzed through her, and she couldn’t keep herself quiet, she thought she might scream; he was driving her so crazy, her knees were barely holding her up and her thighs quivered and his mouth was hot and eager, eating her out like he was starved, like he couldn’t get enough—a telltale shiver rushed through her entire body, and Joan pitched forward again, still gripping the headboard.

“Oh, don’t stop, honey—don’t stop— _oh, god—oh—god!_ ”

Her body shook and her muscles clenched and she came so hard she thought she was going to faint—and when she got a little bit of sense back, she realized she was flat on her back on the bed, Lane on her right, both of them gasping and wheezing like they’d just run a hundred miles. She needed to reach for him, and groped around until she found his hand, grabbing his fingers in a distracted way.

“I—um—” she was panting, and glanced over at him. His face was bright red, nose and mouth and cheeks wet and glossy. _From her._ She shivered, and felt the same slickness all down her inner thighs. Were her ears buzzing? “Holy shit.”

Lane actually giggled, his smug grin getting wider.

“What—” Joan could barely string two words together, and had to lick her lips to speak, “how—how do you—do this?”

He was already leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Do what?”

“Oh,” Joan moaned out a little broken sound as his fingertips trailed over her abdomen, her eyes fluttering closed. “You’re—so sexy when—when you—”

“Say that again,” he said against her skin, and gently took her earlobe between his teeth. She shivered at the words, and after a couple minutes of necking, she finally got enough motor control to roll them over and rubbed a palm against the front of his underwear, which made him suck in a sharp breath.

Her voice was pitched low as she pulled him out to stroke him in earnest, fingers playing over his skin. “God, I love how excited you get.”

Lane twitched under her hand, breathing harder now. “Joan.”

“I remember the first time I thought about this,” she continued, her hand wrapping around him, firmly stroking. He made a choked noise. “After the interview. We came home and you got in bed and started touching yourself. I heard you.”

“Oh, god,” Lane rasped out, flushing a fierce, blotchy red, but he didn’t look away from her face.

“You wanted me so badly you couldn’t wait.”

He squeezed his eyes closed. “That’s when—you told me—”

“I know what I told you. What you wanted,” she whispered as she moved to straddle his thighs, her mind flying back to that first time she’d overheard him, how desperate he’d sounded. He thrust up into her hand with a little humming noise. “Your mouth on me under my dress, my hands in your hair, soaking wet for you.”

“Oh, Christ,” he gasped.

“Did you think about more than that?” Her voice was quiet and relentless, and her hand had stilled around his head, thumb just barely stroking the underside of his cock, making him squirm with need. “Pressing me up those foggy car windows, where everyone in the city could see us?”

“I—” Lane gasped, as she moved her hips against him for the barest bit of friction, her hand staying still. “Yes.”

“Or did you mean to wait until we got home?” Joan continued.

Lane whined out a moan that meant she was killing him. She knew he was picturing what they did a few minutes ago, and ran her thumb along the tip of him. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head.

“Would you have locked the front door, and taken me in that twin bed? Eaten me out on the kitchen table, like a little dessert?”

He moaned again, panting now. Joan made a pleased noise at the way he was babbling.

“Wanted to—have you—”

“You could have come into the living room,” she whispered, and twisted her wrist on a long downstroke, making him gasp. “Seen me desperate for you, practically climbing my own hand, trying to stay so quiet.”

“God almighty—” Lane was breathless.

“Knowing you were close, imagining how you looked. Still wearing my clothes, just trying to get myself off—”

“J-Joan—”

“I came twice for you that day. I couldn’t get enough.”

Lane yelped out a noise that told her he was close, eyes flying open. “Faster.”

She increased the pace. “On the sofa on my stomach, thinking about the way you’d fuck me. I wanted you to. I needed to see you—”

“I—I—”

“Just like this,” she whispered, and Lane cried out, hips arching off the bed, spurting all over her hand. She stroked him through it as he shuddered and gasped, and when it was over, she dropped a kiss onto his jaw, and settled down next to him with a satisfied breath.

Twenty minutes later, after a quick rinse in the shower and a touch-up of her face, Joan was using the curling iron to style a few stray pieces of her hair back into position. Behind her, Lane was essentially dressed, straightening the bottom of his buttoned vest, with his tie hanging loosely around his neck.

As she curled the last tendril of hair around the barrel, and tilted her head to the right, holding the iron in place with one hand, she studied Lane’s reflection in the mirror. She watched his hands as they looped the fabric in practiced motions – once, twice, then behind and through for the full Windsor – and smiled at him, and when he noticed she was watching, he smiled back, and let the knot drop before he could tighten it, moving forward to press his palms against her waist.

Joan gave him an unamused look in the mirror. “I’m fixing my hair.”

“I can see that.” He pressed a kiss into the left side of her neck.

“Lane,” she sighed, in lieu of _don’t._

“I think your hair is beautiful.” He kissed her shoulder, nuzzling into her neck. “Like you.”

She made a skeptical noise as she leaned forward, unwound the iron from her curled hair with one hand, and put it aside in an awkward motion. “Well, it certainly won’t look beautiful if I singe it.”

No response.

“Hand me my hairspray?” she asked, not pushing him away, but casting a pointed glance at the canister that was sitting to the left of the sink. When he was this affectionate, it usually meant he was trying to work up the nerve to say something important.

Lane didn’t move.

“I hope you know that I—that I love you.”

His hands resettled against her waist after he said it, palms sliding gently across her stomach so she was pressed against his chest, his chin tucked into the crook of her shoulder.

 _There._ She sighed, closed her eyes for a second to hide the water blurring in them, and tilted her head so it rested against his, putting her palms over the backs of his hands.

“I love you, too,” she said, thinking suddenly of Kevin, and opening her eyes. “We both do.”

Lane let out a long breath; she could feel him relax with the words. They stood in silence for a moment, watching their joined reflections washed yellow under the mirror’s bright lights, before Lane pulled his hands away from her waist, stepped back, and reached for his jacket, which was hanging on the back of the door. She used the opportunity to fix the stray end of her hair into place with a pin.

“Erm. Well. Nearly time to go, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Joan set the curl with a little jet of hairspray. Once that was done, she put a hand on Lane’s arm, leaned in and kissed him, then wiped lipstick from the corner of his mouth with the pad of her thumb. “Will you get the coats?”

“Oh. Yes, I can do.” He had two spots of pink in his cheeks.

She was smiling again, so wide her mouth hurt. “Thank you.”

“Hello, sir,” Andy boomed to Lane, the second they were within hearing range of the table. The restaurant was packed. “Good to see you. And Joan—good lord. You look younger every time we meet.”

“Just getting my beauty sleep,” Joan said with a smile. He was always a flatterer.

“Baby of yours doesn’t keep you up? That’s a miracle.”

“Now, we shan’t have Mrs. Harris divulge all her secrets,” Lane spread his napkin across his lap as he spoke, his eyes gleaming with mischief as he glanced over at her. “Perhaps she’s discovered the fountain of youth.”

“Very funny.” Joan raised a playful eyebrow at him, and picked up her menu, trying not to react when her stomach growled audibly. She was starving.

“Did you lose a couple pounds since I saw you last?” Andy asked Lane, who practically preened at the suggestion. “You look different. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Oh. Well, perhaps—yes, I-I think that could be it.”

“These specials look good,” Joan offered to no one in particular, and thanked the waiter as he poured her a glass of ice water.

**

The first thing Lane heard as he arrived on the upstairs landing was high-pitched wailing—a child crying in a way that meant someone was hurt. Glancing around, he noticed Caroline cast a weary look back toward Roger’s office, and walked up to her desk. The noise got louder as he got closer.

“Ellery here today?” he asked.

She nodded grimly. “Roger thought it’d be easier to watch them than to finish your paperwork.”

“Them?” Lane asked, forehead creasing with worry.

Caroline waved a hand toward the door. “Go ahead. You’ll find out sooner or later.”

Lane did not like the sound of that, and when he opened the door, he liked the sight even less. Roger was kneeling by the sofa with a bloody handkerchief pressed to one little boy’s nose—Ellery’s, presumably—while Kevin stood a few feet away, his little face ashen and two tiny bruises darkening one side of his cheek.

“What’s happened here?” Lane asked, closing the door behind him. The wailing had quieted to a sort of muffled whimpering noise.

“It was just horseplay,” Roger sounded unusually subdued. “Everyone’s fine.”

Kevin rushed to Lane’s side almost immediately, practically grabbing him by the trouser leg. “Lane, I didn’t mean to hurt him!”

“Right.” Lane was rapidly coming to an understanding of the situation. Bruises and scrapes—clearly, they fought. “And what, precisely, did you do?”

“Ellery took my train!” Kevin blurted out first, eliciting a furious noise from the other boy, who wrenched his head back to contest this, and promptly dribbled a bit of blood onto his shirtfront. Roger muttered a curse, and quickly staunched the boy’s nose with the handkerchief.

“And so you hit him?” Lane asked, forcing his voice to stay even and quiet.

“No!” Kevin averted his eyes to the ground, and toed at the tile floor with one little penny loafer. “Um—I juh—just wanted it back, and then my foot slipped, and then I—”

“You know, every time you tell a lie, your nose grows another inch,” Roger said slyly, taking the handkerchief away from Ellery’s nose again, and making a satisfied noise when no blood trickled out this time. Must not be broken, judging by how still the lad stayed while Roger inspected it.

Kevin’s eyes widened in a horrified expression, and he stopped talking.

“No, it doesn’t.” Lane fixed Kevin with an expectant look. “Now, you’re to tell me the truth. Did you hit Ellery?”

“Yes.” Kevin bowed his head, and sniffed in a suspicious way before starting to cry in earnest. “But I d-didn’t mean to!”

“Oh, Jesus.” Roger looked affronted at the sight of tears. “Kevin.”

“Right.” Lane rubbed a hand across his eyes. _Whatever you say, don’t frighten the boy. He’s a child. Children do these things._ “Well, that was very wrong of you. We don’t _ever_ fight our friends, do you understand me?”

“Unless they insult you.”

“Not the time!” Lane snapped at Roger, but immediately caught himself before he could lose his temper further, and let out a deep breath. In front of him, Kevin only cried harder, snot and tears glistening on his little face as he swiped at his eyes with one hand.

Lane felt a lead lump form in his stomach, but kept talking in a deliberately quieter voice. “Now, when you’ve done wrong, you’ve got to apologize for it, first.”

“I-I’m really sorry!” Kevin wailed at once.

Lane gestured towards Roger and Ellery, where the dark-haired boy stood watching Kevin with a wary expression. His little nose was a bit swollen, nostrils crusted with dried blood, and there was a scratch on his upper lip, but there was no more new blood, which was a mercy.

“I’m not the one who needs to hear it,” Lane prompted, pointing toward the other lad. “Go and tell Ellery.”

Kevin looked stricken.

“Go on,” Lane gestured toward the others a second time, removing his glasses as he spoke. “Your uncle will help.”

_Please follow my lead. Please, for god’s sake, don’t say anything stupid._

“All right,” Roger glanced at Lane in a way that meant he’d pick up the slack, and motioned Kevin closer. “Come on, quit crying. You’re not hurt.”

Lane rolled his eyes at this, and put his glasses back on.

“When a man apologizes,” Roger continued, thankfully steering away from more editorial comments, “he does it right. El, front and center.”

Ellery stepped forward, a sullen look on his face.

Roger handed Kevin his handkerchief, gesturing toward the cleanest corner. “Here. Wipe your face, stand up straight.”

Kevin looked miserable, but did as he was told, shuffling into place with an exaggerated sniff. His lower lip was still wobbling, and he swiped at his eyes again.

“Look,” Roger said. “El’s your pal, huh? And sure, he did something dumb, stealing your train, but so did you, because you socked him in the face.”

“You hurt him, which is unacceptable,” Lane added sternly, then felt compelled to amend this statement. “Unless you’re defending yourself.”

There was no disagreement from Roger this time.

“Come on,” Roger put a hand on the boys’ shoulders, so they squarely faced each other. “You two are practically—“ he changed course mid-sentence, “well, you’re buddies, right? So look each other in the eye, and say you’re sorry.”

“Sorry I hit you,” Kevin whispered after a long silence. Ellery blinked, glanced at Roger, who was watching them in an expectant way, and then nodded gravely.

“Um. That’s okay.”

Roger cleared his throat. “Great. El? Your turn.”

“I’m sorry,” Ellery muttered quickly—which was not a true apology in Lane’s eyes, but would do, given the mood of the room.

The two boys shared an awkward handshake, which turned into an awkward hug. Looking back and forth between them as they pulled away, and Roger sent them back into the hall to wreak havoc on poor Caroline, Lane thought he noticed something very odd.

_They’ve got the same nose._

He shook his head to clear it, one hand automatically coming up to rub the back of his neck. Must be seeing things.

Roger broke the silence, and got to his feet with a grunt. Lane was sure he must be thinking about the damn fight with Campbell, but for once, the other man didn’t try to get a point in.

“So, you want to break the news to Mrs. Harris, or should I?”

Lane sighed. Oh, god. She’d be furious.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said finally, deciding not to mention that he realized Roger was clearly weaseling out of the responsibility.

“Right. Well, I owe you one.” Roger’s relief quickly turned into confusion. “What’d you come up here for, anyway?”

When Lane walked out of Roger’s office with Julius's RFP clutched in one hand, he saw Ellery was standing in one corner of the lounge with his face turned to the wall. Across the room by Cutler’s door, Kevin faced the opposite corner, in the same position. Both boys were silent.

Across the way, Clara was smirking at her typewriter as she worked, while Caroline was writing calmly at her desk.

“Two more minutes, boys,” she called out to the children, just as Lane passed by. She waved at him in a distracted way, and he returned the gesture.

**

The party turned out to be eight children in total. Most of their mothers or fathers dropped them off, stayed for ten or fifteen minutes of conversation, and made a hasty retreat, promising to be back in a couple of hours. Joan had some snide words on that subject, but she quickly leapt into action with the two mothers who’d bothered to stay, along with Lane, trying to keep everyone in line.

After the first hour, when the children had been temporarily calmed by birthday cake and ice cream, and the ladies were refreshing their bowl of spiked punch, Lane slipped into his office under pretense of needing the toilet. When he produced his keys and opened the door – Joan had it locked, quick thinking on her part – he stopped dead in the doorway.

In front of the desk was parked a shiny blue bicycle with a dust rag and a large bow lying on the floor next to the front tire.

Well, well. Kevin would be thrilled.

Lane spent the next few minutes making sure the thing was reasonably clean, adjusting the seat as well as he could, and checking the gears and tires—air was a bit low, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a hand pump later. He doubted Kevin could stay on the thing long enough to notice. He’d been working on it for several minutes – his mood lifting the longer he worked – before the sound of the door opening made him glance up in alarm.

“Oh,” Joan closed the door behind her, fixing him with a surprised look. “I thought I’d have to sneak away.”

“Thought I might tidy it up, since I was here,” Lane told her, and handed her the bow in case she wanted to do the honors. “How long have you had it?”

Joan sat down on the edge of an end table. “The week he was born, a certain person got very drunk and decided this would be an appropriate baby present. We came home and found it sitting in my foyer.”

Lane smiled. He did not have to cast his mind far to identify that person. Gail was not the type to spring for sports equipment. “A very spirited uncle, I suppose?”

“He didn’t have Ellery then,” Joan was fluffing the bow in her hand so none of the ribbon loops were twisted. He couldn’t tell if she was purposely avoiding his gaze. “I think he just wanted someone to spoil.”

Hm. Lane considered that, folding it into the many things he understood, or thought he understood, about Roger. The man reminded him a little of Lewis at times—a fact which Lane would never admit aloud—always hiding his moods underneath crude humor. The only times he’d ever seen Roger get truly angry was when he spoke about the Pacific, or Lee Garner, Jr. And the few times he’d seen Roger be truly kind were always with the boys, or with Joan herself. He seemed to have a soft spot for the people he considered family.

They did have the same nose. Ellery and Kevin. And Roger.

He had been thinking about that for days, so constantly he’d practically gone mad. Roger had been the one to make the phone call, the night they started SCDP. _I’ll be discreet._ Lane had never forgotten that; contacting Joan had struck him as an incredible idea at the time, but also impossibly strange. He had never considered that Joan and Roger were friendly outside the office.

But knowing she had been lonely, even miserable, in her marriage to Greg was not strange. Knowing Roger would certainly have encouraged flirtation—welcomed it, probably—was also not strange. The two of them had worked together for the better part of two decades. Roger was a significant part of Joan’s personal life, now. And with the whole business surrounding his divorce from Jane, Margaret’s running off, and bringing up Ellery—the way he paid such attention to Kevin—

“You okay?” Joan asked, and Lane glanced over at her.

“What? Sorry.” He took a breath, tried to smile. “Just, erm, wool-gathering.”

“Well, do you want to do the honors?” Joan was standing now, tying the bow to the cycle’s handlebars. “They’ll get antsy unless we open presents soon.”

“Start without me,” Lane told her, touching her arm. “I’ll bring this out in a moment.”

“Okay,” she said, but the look on her face was still worried, as if she somehow knew what he was thinking. Perhaps he was too paranoid; she probably just thought he was tired and needed time away from the children. “Don’t miss too much.”

“I won’t,” he told her. “I promise.”

She left the door open behind her as she went, and as Lane listened to the party gearing up again – children giggling and Joan leading Kevin through an elaborate walkthrough of his presents – he came to a decision.

He walked around his desk and picked up the handset, dialing the number from memory. The thought just kept spinning round and round in his head. Joan was fiercely protective of their family, and especially of Kevin, but she was not cruel. Not to the few people who shared her son’s best interests, at least.

A woman answered. “Hello?”

“Yes, hello.” Lane steeled his nerves, not recognizing the voice. “Is this the Holloway residence?”

The reply was immediate. “That depends. Who’s asking?”

He imagined Gail would not be so cagey; this must be someone else. Gail would have at least recognized his voice, or hung up on him. “It’s—her daughter’s husband. Lane. Erm. I just wanted to call and see if she—wanted to speak to her grandson. Today’s his birthday, and he’s been asking about her.”

It wasn’t a lie. Kevin had been visibly disappointed when Joan told him she didn’t think Gail was coming over.

“Oh.” The voice sounded less suspicious. “Well, she isn’t here, sorry.”

Lane scrubbed a hand over his face, not sure if the overwhelming feeling bubbling up inside him was disappointment or relief. “Ah. Well. Will you—when she returns, will you tell her I’ve called? She doesn’t need to phone back, if—if she’s busy. I just thought she might like to, erm, talk.”

“Sure,” said the woman, after a short pause. “I’ll tell her.”

They hung up after exchanging a brief goodbye. Lane took a deep breath, stood up, and fixed the hem of his green jumper. Well. He had tried it, at any rate, and that was all there was to be done. Taking the bicycle by the handlebars, he wheeled it out of the office, paused only to close the door behind him, and shepherded it down the hall until he was just next to the living room doorway.

Joan was in the middle of a sentence, “—like the cartoon paper, Mikey. Thank you. Okay. Who’s next?”

Lane cleared his throat, pitching his voice louder so all the children could overhear him. “I wonder if the birthday boy would like to see his secret present?”

Whispers of excitement followed. Joan sounded like she was smiling.

“I don’t know. It’s awfully big.”

“No, I want it!” Kevin exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. It sounded as if he was trying to rush out into the hall. “I want to see! What is it?”

“Wait!” Joan was laughing now. Lane peeked around the corner first, to make sure everything was ready, and then wheeled the bicycle slowly into the living room.

Kevin—only held back by his mother’s hands on his hips—yelped aloud, and began to jump up and down, actually shrieking. “A bike! A bike! Oh, Mama, I got a bike!”

“That’s from Uncle Roger,” Joan said softly, but Kevin didn’t seem to hear her. He was already sprinting forward, with several other children at his heels.

“Wow,” the boy breathed, throwing his arms around the nearest handlebar.

Lane motioned everyone closer, treasuring the starry-eyed look on Kevin’s face. “Come and have a look. I’ll show you what everything does. You’ll just have to be careful of the wheels.”

“Can I ride it?” Kevin asked, as he looked up at Lane.

“Not in the house,” Joan said immediately.

“But I’ll teach you how,” Lane told him, and lowered his voice, “once everyone’s gone.”

“Oh, yeah. Mom can’t ride a bike,” Kevin nodded his head in a way that signaled surety—that of course Lane needed to teach him.

“Well, I could teach her, too, if she doesn’t know.” Lane gave the lad a wink, and tousled Kevin’s hair. “It’s very easy, once you get the hang of it.”

The boy was bouncing on his feet again, and rang the little silver bell, gasping in glee when it dinged under his hands. Suddenly, small fingers were all grabbing for the lever at the same time— _let me try, I want to do it, how’d you do that, it’s so loud_ —and Lane stepped backwards to let some of the children through, keeping a hand on the seat so none of them knocked the thing over. They surrounded it in a swarm, grabbing at pedals and tires and silver chains and the bright blue paint.

Kevin was already chattering to the others. “It’s my favorite color!”

He caught Joan’s eye again through the sea of excitement, saw she was a bit misty-eyed, and winked at her, too.

He nudged Kevin in the shoulder with his free hand.

“Go and thank your mother. She’s kept it ready for you.”

“Thank you thank you thank you!” The boy ran to Joan, peppering her cheek with kisses as he threw his arms around her neck. Her expression turned so bright it almost put a lump in Lane’s throat.

Good birthday, he thought, as another little boy beside him grabbed his arm, asking a question about the wheel spokes. Very good indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk: I was so happy that Roger and Joan didn't end up getting back together in canon--not because I don't think they have chemistry (they do), but because there was always such a weird imbalance in that relationship. Joan loved him so much at first, but he didn't really get how good things were with her until they broke up. And even then, he couldn't admit that he loved her. So I've appreciated watching them navigate through the awkwardness, and then him becoming a real presence in Kevin's life, if not his father by name.
> 
> And, let's be honest, if anyone is going to function as the ex-husband who has to accept Joan's new squeeze, it is absolutely Roger. Lane's the guy who'd be raising his kid. In my head, Roger's parentage is not something that Lane and Joan talk about for years, if ever, but I think there would be this kind of tacit understanding that yes, Roger is important to her family, and that's just part of the deal if you want to be with Joan for longer than a hot second.


	11. Chapter 11

_april_

 

Lane hummed to himself as he made sure the large paper-wrapped box was centered perfectly on Joan’s desk, situating the far right corner until the present sat directly in the middle of her large calendar. When it finally seemed all right, he stood up to admire his handiwork.

Now all he’d have to do was write a little note.

He’d tried to wait until their actual anniversary. He really had meant to wait, but in the end, his enthusiasm had got the better of him. So here he was, nearly two weeks before the day, trying to surprise her with a little gift.

Perhaps—he thought as he put pen to paper, trying to come up with the perfect turn of phrase—he ought to have at least delayed until they got home, but no, he’d already come this far, and he’d had to leave during lunch in order to pick the blasted thing up from customer service.

The nib of the fountain pen accidentally dotted the creamy paper. Lane could only stare at the small mark on the blank card when inspiration suddenly struck: something funny would do.

_Darling—a little evening wear for our anniversary. Kisses—_

The door creaked open. Lane drew a harsh thick line down the middle of the second x he had been writing, and jerked his head up to see Jim Cutler in the doorway. His grey suit was impeccable, and a single file was balanced on his arm.

“Lane,” was all he said, closing the door behind him.

“Ah.” Lane quickly capped his fountain pen, and shoved the note to Joan underneath her gift box with the side of one hand. “Hello.”

“Seems we’re out of luck,” Jim’s eyes flicked over the wrapped box as he walked over. Rounding the corner, he stopped short a few feet from Joan’s chair. “I wasn’t aware the mail came through.”

“Yes. I-I suppose it arrived earlier. It was here when I, erm, came in.”

Lane hoped the lie wasn’t too obvious, but the other man just raised an amused eyebrow, gesturing toward Joan’s gilded pencil holder. “Would you mind?”

“Oh,” Lane fumbled to hand him pen and paper. “Of course.”

Cutler wasted no time with other inanities, simply opened his file, plucked a few blank post-its from the papers within, and placed it down onto the desk. He began to write in a smooth, unhurried hand, sticking one to the cover of the folder and placing the others on assorted pages. Still rolling his fountain pen between finger and thumb, Lane glanced down at the desk, and then back at Cutler, wondering if he ought to uncap his pen and pretend to write anything else, or simply take the first note and go.

“Are you going to look over my shoulder all day?”

Lane cursed himself for being so obvious. “Sorry. I was—simply hoping I could wait for Mrs. Harris.”

“And waste more time?” Cutler replied, still writing. Lane wished he knew which account that was for, and what action would need to be taken based on that message. As oblique as the other man was, what truly unnerved Lane was that Cutler took pains not to speak to him unless absolutely necessary. Lane couldn’t help thinking it was because the man had some wild scheme to eliminate either his job, or Joan’s. Or both.

“No. Of course not.” And now Lane truly did have nothing else to say. He couldn’t reach for the note without tipping Cutler off to the truth, and he couldn’t hang about the office for the same reasons. His hand twitched at his side before he stood upright, and plucked a random paper from her desk in order to pretend it was urgent business. “I’ll—leave you to it, then.”

**

Pete had vetoed every suggestion Joan had given for the upcoming night out, and come up with a single bad idea, which they’d been fighting over for twenty minutes.

“Jazz is a traditionally African-American—”

Joan tossed her pen onto her desk, and crossed her arms across her chest. “Jesus. Why don’t you just tell them how much you _love_  Porgy and Bess? I’m sure they won’t find that pandering at all!”

“Porgy and—did you read any of the _Ebony_ issues I left for—”

“My god. Stop stealing those from Shirley’s desk! She hates that!”

“I’ll thank you to know that I borrowed them! Why does everyone keep bringing it up?”

The phone rang, drowning out Pete’s next couple of words. Joan glanced down to see it was her private line, sighed, and pulled her earring from her ear, picking it up just so she could have ten seconds of peace.

“Joan Harris.”

“Hello, darling,” said Lane in his pretending-to-be-calm voice, which immediately jolted her into confusion. “Are you free to come home early?”

She pursed her mouth, not at all reassured. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, I’m sure it will keep till tomorrow,” he interrupted as if she’d said _no_ , still sounding too cheerful. “Your mother’s just dropped by, with Kevin, and we’re all about to have a little chat.”

Joan felt horror coil in the pit of her stomach. “ _What._ ”

Pete sat up in his chair, the questioning unease obvious in his face.

“She’s just arrived,” Lane continued brightly, as if Joan hadn’t spoken. “Lovely surprise. We’d have missed each other entirely, if it weren’t for my errands.”

Joan adjusted the receiver on her ear, totally lost for words. “She’s—she’s at home. With you.”

“Yes, we’re just about to have some tea.” Lane gave his terrible work laugh; the high, nervous-sounding one he used when he didn’t know how else to fill the silence. “I thought that might be nice. Erm. Shall we wait for you?”

“Um,” Joan felt like she couldn’t breathe. “No. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“All right, darling. Take care.”

She hung up the phone in a daze, meeting Pete’s concerned gaze with a thin-lipped expression.

“What was that about?” he asked.

Joan shook her head. “My mother’s with—” she censored herself just in time “—Kevin. The sitter’s not—I have to go.”

“Oh.” Pete clearly didn’t know how to respond to this. “Did she say what was happening?”

“I don’t know why.” Joan felt anxiety bubbling up into her chest. Mom alone with Lane. Oh, god. She’d probably kill him. _Shit._

“Well, I’m sure everything’s fine.” Pete smiled at her in what was probably meant to be a comforting way as he stood up and buttoned his jacket. On his face, the attempt at sympathy looked insane.

“Yes,” Joan tried to smile back, and could hardly move her mouth. “I’m sure.”

Once he was gone, she shoved several files into her satchel in a panic, trying to keep her hands from shaking as she locked it. What the hell was her mother doing, showing up in the middle of the afternoon? After months of the silent treatment, why would she need to talk to Lane? What was she saying to him?

Or worse, what was he saying to her? Oh, god, if he got defensive, or started yelling…if there was anything Mom hated more than a blindly stubborn man, it was a man who tried to put her under his heel. Oh, Jesus. This was not good.

She found herself in the backseat of a cab in less than ten minutes, breathing in the overpowering smell of curry and praying none of them tried to kill each other. For a second, her heart hammered so quickly in her throat she felt like she might throw up, and had to put her head in her hands to block out the view of the city as it sped by. _Breathe. Just breathe._ Thank god the cabbie didn’t say anything about it.

When she opened the front door, Kevin ran to her, tugging at the strap of her satchel as she put it down by the coat rack, and pulled off her coat. “Mama! Grandma’s here!”

“I heard,” Joan said carefully. After another second of consideration, she kicked off her pumps. She couldn’t have this conversation in these shoes.

“Come on!” Kevin exclaimed, and tugged her toward the living room.

It was as bad as she’d expected.

Kevin was either oblivious to the tension or wary enough to be on best behavior, sitting on the floor by the television, which was turned down low, playing some local kids’ program. He was munching on a cookie and scribbling on some colored paper with his back to the rest of the room.

Behind him, her mother and Lane sat on the sofa and armchair respectively, with the coffee table centered between them. It held a full tea tray that looked almost pristine. An untouched teacup sat steaming just a few inches in front of Mom’s knee. Meanwhile, Lane sat ramrod-straight in his chair, expression guarded, and her mother was watching him with a smirk, like she was ready to laugh in his face the minute he said something wrong.

“Hello, Mom,” Joan stifled the urge to twist her hands in front of her.

Her mother looked over, and arched an eyebrow, but didn’t get up from the sofa. The skirt of her floral dress wrinkled slightly as she shifted in her seat. “Joanie. Don’t look so thrilled.”

Joan managed to give her a weak smile, and walked over to stand next to Lane’s armchair, struggling to keep her voice light. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, you wanted to talk,” Gail’s smile was sharklike as she glanced between the two of them. “So talk.”

“You’re actually making demands right now?” Joan couldn’t believe the nerve.

“Now, Joan,” Lane said carefully, “I’d like for us all to—”

“Lane, I’m drawing a picture of us!” Kevin interrupted from the floor, scrambling up from where he’d been lying on his stomach to shove a piece of scribbly paper into Lane’s hands.

“Oh.” Lane’s voice sounded strained when he tried to be cheerful again, barely glancing at the paper Kevin shoved in front of him. “Well, that’s—that’s very nice, but I can’t look at it right now.”

“But I wanted to—” Kevin pushed it toward Lane’s hands again. Lane interrupted him, and gestured to the floor with a waved hand.

“No, now, just—you can show it to me once it’s finished. Go and sit.”

Kevin frowned, and glanced at Joan like this was crazy talk, but he didn’t argue about it for once. She made a quick shooing motion with one hand, and he slouched back to his place by the television.

“Ugh.”

Joan didn’t miss the way her mother watched every little bit of that conversation, and felt her hackles rise under the scrutiny. “What gives you the right to storm back in here, after what you pulled?”

“For god’s sake, Joan,” Lane said immediately, “don’t bait the woman.”

Joan scoffed out a skeptical noise, and stared down at Lane in shock. Did he really just reprimand her in front of her own mother? “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” was all he said, getting _prim_ on her, of all things. He glanced at Gail as if she was equally guilty. “Now, if we are to have this discussion in earnest, I expect everyone to keep things civil.”

The reason for this surprise visit suddenly dawned on Joan, along with her mother’s remark. _You wanted to talk._

“You called her without telling me.” Joan said flatly. It wasn’t a question.

Lane drew himself up again. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Kevin misses her. As do you. And it’s past time we settled it.”

Joan only kept her mouth closed through a superhuman will of effort, clenching her jaw as twelve thoughts shot through her head at once. _The hell I do! Kevin can get over it. He’s a kid. She’s a bitch. What is wrong with you? I don’t have to discuss a goddamn thing._

Her mother just snorted, like this exchange was the most hilarious thing she’d ever seen. “Well, Lane, as much as I’m enjoying this little show—”

_You don’t get to laugh at him._

“That’s what you think this is?” Now Joan was just furious. “You come in here in the middle of—”

“Joan, will you take Kevin to his room, please.”

For a second, Joan was so startled she couldn’t even finish the sentence, and turned to Lane with her mouth hanging open. The last time he had ordered her around like that was years ago, when she was practically his secretary. “What.”

“I think your mother and I ought to have a private word,” Lane said in a crisp way, but he wasn’t looking at her—he was staring at her mother, who stared right back. There was a high flush on his face. “All things considered.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in a half hour.”

Why the hell would he—no, he wasn’t going to be able to just—

“Lane,” Joan said tightly, clenching her jaw again to keep her temper in check, but he held up a hand.

“Darling, I’ve quite made up my mind about this.” When he finally glanced at her, she could see the determination in his face. It startled her. What the hell was he trying to prove? “And I don’t want Kevin to overhear. Will you please take him?”

God damn it, now she couldn’t argue without looking like an ass.

“Fine,” she growled out after a few seconds of silence.

Lane looked visibly relieved, but recovered quickly. “Right. Thank you. Gail, perhaps we can—my office is just down the hall. It’s—much more comfortable for these sorts of things.”

“Well, by all means, comfort me,” her mother said snidely, rising from the sofa, smoothing her dress, and striding toward the doorway without so much as saying boo to her daughter.

Joan took Lane’s elbow before he could leave the room, trying to put her frustration into the fewest possible words. “For god’s sake, this isn’t something you can just fix.” _I have to be there. You can’t shut me out. She won’t listen to you._

He met her eyes with an expression that begged her to trust him. “Well, we can’t expect to get anywhere unless we tell her the truth.”

“It’s none of her business!” Joan hissed, panic welling in her throat again. _She doesn’t get to do this to us!_

“No. But she’s your mother, and she’s angry because of me.” Lane said simply, and patted her hand as he moved it from his arm. “It’ll be all right.”

 _You don’t know that,_ Joan wanted to scream as he walked away from her and down the hall, and shut his office door behind him. She was so anxious she actually wanted to pace, and put a shaking hand to her forehead. Oh, god. Shit, this was really happening. Why was he so set on doing this? She couldn’t keep arguing with her mother anymore, it was too much, it just made her—

“Mama?” Kevin asked. Joan yanked her hand away from her face. When she looked up, he was frowning at her.

She summoned up another wan smile, although a few tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m—I’m just tired.”

“Grandma sounds mad,” he told her, and then picked up a red crayon, face brightening. “Want to see what I drawed?”

“Drew,” Joan said gently, and moved back into the living room. Ten minutes. Maybe twenty. She could be patient for that long. “Yes. Show me what you drew.”

**

“Lane, I don’t give a shit about these,” Gail pushed away the folder that held the photocopies of the USCIS applications. Lane watched her with apprehensive eyes as she kept speaking. “As far as I’m concerned, it means you did use her.”

“Well,” Lane sighed, and lifted one hand in a shrug, “then, we used each other in equal measure. She wanted to get Kevin out of Doctor Harris’s grasp—rightly so, to my mind—and I wanted to pursue citizenship. That was our initial agreement, ridiculous as it may seem.”

“Then why bother with all of this garbage? For god’s sake, you got a four-year-old child involved in your idiotic delusions. How the hell is Joanie going to explain this to him once you’re out the door?”

“I told you why,” Lane said quietly. “And I’m not leaving.”

“Please,” Gail scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “You two can shack up together as long as you want, but don’t call it love.”

“Those two aspects are not mutually exclusive. Joan is my wife. We have a—a lawful covenant.”

Her smile was more than a little mocking. “That what your daddy called it?”

“My father struck my mother every time she so much as dropped a dishcloth,” Lane said sharply, the sudden flash of anger making his words ring through the quiet room. “He dictates _nothing_ about my life or my family.”

Gail blinked back at him, stunned into silence. She sat back in her chair.

Lane tried to keep his temper in check, closed his eyes briefly, and pressed his mouth into a furious line before he could speak again. “That was my vow.”

She studied Lane for a long time after this declaration, folding one hand over the other in her lap in the same way he’d seen Joan do, hundreds of times. With Joan, the gesture usually meant she was striving to be diplomatic.

“Does Joanie know about this?”

“Yes.” He rubbed at his eyes underneath his glasses, thinking of the letter they had burned together. There was probably more than enough in it for her to draw her own conclusions. “Enough to—to understand. I’ve broken all ties there. She’s in no danger.”

“And you did that for her?”

“Oh—well, it was an outcome of—at the time of my divorce, my ex-wife thought there was infidelity. That Joan and I were involved, which we were not.”

“Your divorce papers say adultery,” Gail noted.

“As do Joan’s.”

She raised an eyebrow. Lane continued.

“In either case, what’s done is done. Separately, we wanted to divorce, later, we decided to marry, and now we’ve decided to stay married. That is all that matters, in the end.”

“Fine,” Gail said slowly, pursing her mouth in a way that meant she was preparing to ask another question. “So why do you want to stay married?”

Lane frowned. “You know the reasons.”

“No. I know how you both got into this mess,” Gail corrected, leaning forward in her chair. “And that you wanted her earlier than either of you cared to admit. Why should she trust that you’re not just going to dump her for a newer model in two years? Or five? Or ten?” She punctured every sentence by tapping her first two fingers onto the papers that sat atop his desk. “We both know my daughter’s beautiful, but she’s not young. She won’t get any more chances at this.”

After a moment, Lane nodded. He steepled his hands on the table, then pulled them back, got up from his chair, and reached into the file drawer containing all their application paperwork.

When he finally found the correct envelope, he pulled it out with one hand, glanced at its sleek letterhead face, and slid it across the table toward Gail.

“This—when we filed for the application, we had to write a letter explaining why we, er, desired a union. Much of it may be familiar to you now, but I—I may not have expressed the rest as eloquently, so you ought to, erm, see it.” He sighed. “As I said, you may ask whatever you wish. I shall—endeavor to answer as best I can.”

Gail reached out wordlessly, and opened the flap of the envelope, pulling out the folded sheets of paper. Lane turned away from her as she began to read, and reached for the album containing their wedding pictures.

**

By the time the office door opened, and Joan heard footsteps creaking on the carpet, she and Kevin were in the boys’ room; he was fast asleep on the floor next to his train set, and she was curled up on the bed, just watching his slow little breaths. Reminded her of old times, really. Lying here and listening to the creaks and groans throughout the apartment, getting used to it. Getting used to being married.

There was movement in the hall. Joan glanced over to see her mother standing in the doorway. She was surprised Lane hadn’t found them first.

“I thought you’d gone.”

“Well, nobody threw me out,” Gail replied, although there was no real venom behind the barb.

Joan just sat up, and motioned her over.

“You’d think this was the most Lane’s ever talked in one sitting,” her mother observed as she stepped around Kevin’s feet, and sat down on the comforter next to Joan. “He’s exhausted. How the hell do you get a word out of him?”

 _Lane’s_ exhausted? Since when does her mother care about anyone except herself?

“He always talks to me,” Joan said with a shrug, voice low and noncommital. “Usually we’re in bed first.”

Her mother made an amused noise, but didn’t comment. It was only at that point that Joan noticed how pale she was, and how quiet. Was she really not going to make some snippy remark?

“You got lucky, you know.”

Joan blinked back at her in shock. “What?”

“That man knows more about you than the rest of your husbands put together, and it still didn’t scare him off. You could live a hundred years and not deserve this much patience. Do you understand that?”

“Well, he still married me,” Joan said, trying to be glib. The words felt stuck in her throat. Mom thought she didn’t _deserve_ him? What the hell did Lane say?

“Joanie, it’s not just about being married.” Her mother was staring at the long shelf above Kevin’s bed, filled with a row of soft cover picture books and some stuffed animals. “You have kids. Clearly, they’re a priority.”

Joan wanted to roll her eyes. _Like I don’t get that._ She decided to admit the truth, instead, and let out a breath before she spoke.

“Lane wants to adopt Kevin.”

Her mother nodded. “I saw the papers.”

Oh. “Well, we’ve—talked about it,” Joan brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “He’s traditional. And I—” she swallowed, trying to push down the butterflies that usually accompanied those conversations. “He’s a good father.”

 _I want him to do it._ Her throat tightened at the thought as she watched Kevin sleep: pictured him running up to Lane and calling him _Dad_ , Lane reading him stories and teaching him how to bike and play foot—well, maybe soccer, she guessed. He’d watch him grow up. Watch him fall in love. Graduate. Get married.

_We’ll be a family._

“He’s certainly involved,” Gail commented after a second, and then got to her feet, her mouth tightening. “Said this was the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Joan couldn’t say a word, she was so stunned.

Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Way he talks, it’s like you hung the moon. Don’t look so surprised.”

“Stop,” Joan mumbled, before her mother could break whatever kind of fragile peace Lane had put together.

Gail just shrugged. “Well, you’ve got plenty to do before dinner, so I’ll get out of your way.” She gave her daughter a kind of funny expectant look, then stepped forward and tucked a stray piece of Joan’s hair to one side.

Joan waved her mother’s hand away, not unkindly. “Mom, for god’s sake.”

“Fine.” Gail pulled her hand back, and stepped over Kevin’s legs to get to the door, glancing left down the hall with a frown, as if she didn’t remember which door was which.

“I can show you out,” Joan offered weakly.

“No,” her mother said, holding up a hand. “You’re upset. Don’t worry, I told Lane I won’t bother you a bit.”

What was that supposed to mean? As soon as Joan heard the front door open and close, she threaded past Kevin’s sleeping form and into the hallway. The office door was open—room empty—but there was a light on in their bedroom.

She pushed the door open and saw Lane bent down in front of their dresser with his waistcoat folded on top of the bureau. The bottom drawer that contained his sweaters was hanging open. He was changing for dinner.

Her throat felt tight as she thought about what her mother had said. _That man thinks you hung the moon._ Lane had talked to her mother about his feelings. He showed her papers. He’d told her everything.

All because it bothered Joan.

He must have heard her footsteps, because he spoke first, voice flat, still rifling through the drawer. “Gail go home?”

“Yes,” Joan said. The catch in her voice must have given her away, because Lane looked up at her, frowned, and immediately stopped what he was doing.

“You all right?”

“She—” Joan could hardly choke out the words. “You called her because of me. Because I was upset.”

“Yes.” Lane looked terrified, like he was waiting for her to start yelling at him.

“You talked her down. You told her everything.”

His posture was still wary. He got to his feet, slowly, like one false move would set her off.

“And you said—how much you love me. How much you love Kevin.”

“Sorry. Is that—bad?” Lane asked, his brow creasing in confusion.

Joan put a hand over her face, and started to cry, her free arm curling protectively around one side of her body. “No.” Her mouth was all water as she tried to talk. “Nobody’s ever—”

_Loved me that way. Loved me that much._

She crossed the room blindly through a haze of tears, needing to feel him against her, needing him to hold her.

“Oh,” he breathed as she stumbled into his arms, like he was shocked, like he just couldn’t believe it. “Oh, my darling.”

She buried her face in his shoulder, unable to get out any more words. He really loved her. And she loved him so much. He was her husband and he loved her and he wanted to take care of her.

“It’s all right now,” Lane said over and over, and for the first time in months, Joan was tempted to believe it. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

**

“You think Cynthia’s pregnant again?” Joan shut her compact with a click and put it back into her purse. They were stuck in traffic in the back of a cab on the way to dinner. “Kenny’s very stressed. It can’t just be work.”

_Unless he’s quitting. But you’d blow a gasket if you thought he was quitting._

Lane turned to stare at her like she’d just grown horns. “Good lord. They’ve just had Eddie. It would be—impossible!”

“I had a friend from college whose boys were born ten months apart,” Joan’s mouth quirked up into a smirk. “Last time I saw her in the city, she was pushing one in a pram and was eight months pregnant with the other, in the middle of July. I think her husband gave her a medal.”

“So I should hope.” Lane made a thoughtful sort of noise. “Would they really invite us to dinner to share that sort of news? Not like we’re family.”

“Well, let’s just hope Cynthia was a little less easy than my friend,” Joan said lightly, her smile widening when Lane blushed a brilliant red.

“The thing is, I, uh,” Ken scratched at a spot just above his eyepatch as he spoke, seeming embarrassed. One of Cynthia’s hands was poised on his right arm, encouraging. “I got offered Head of Advertising over at Dow. And I’m gonna take it. Well. I did take it, actually. Starts in two weeks.”

Cynthia’s face was full of hopeful optimism as she watched their reaction. Joan glanced right and saw that Lane was a little pale, totally lost for words.

“Oh,” was all he said.

Joan jumped in immediately. “Well, we’ll be sorry to see you go.” She flashed both Cosgroves a rueful smile, in an attempt at smoothing things over until Lane found his voice. “But I can’t say I’m surprised. All those free accounts.”

Ken’s good eye widened, but after a second, he smiled, and seemed to relax. “Yeah. I guess I did give the game away there.” He laughed a little, in a sad way. “God, you never miss a thing, do you?”

“Trust me, we understand,” Joan said lightly, and reached for her drink. Really, it was easy to see why he’d want to go. Injuries aside, if he stayed, he couldn’t move up to head of accounts without killing Pete for it, and at his age, if he got stuck in middle management, he might never make it out. Dow would give him more money, better connections—and a happy father-in-law to boot.

Cynthia heaved out a sigh of relief. “I’m just so glad you’re not upset. Lane, Kenny’s been so nervous to tell you. He almost wrote a letter instead.”

“Great. Thanks for that,” Ken mumbled, shifting in his seat, and carefully not staring at Lane for longer than a few seconds. Clearly, he was waiting for Lane to say something other than _oh_.

“I—I just can’t believe you’re really going,” Lane finally sighed. Joan saw the way his mouth twitched as he tried not to frown. He was not thrilled about this.

“Oh, Lane,” Cynthia looked mollified. “I’m sorry.”

“No, dear—you mustn’t—it’s the right decision, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ken said quietly, scratching the back of his neck, this time. “Feels weird, though.”

“Yes,” agreed Lane with another sigh. He managed a weak smile this time. “I should say so.”

“Ken, when did you start at Sterling Cooper?” Joan asked, trying to lift the mood a little. “Fifty-seven or fifty-eight?”

“Jeez.” He and Cynthia exchanged a playful look that Joan couldn’t quite decipher. “Mind like a steel trap. It was fifty-seven.”

“Same year as Paul,” she said slyly.

He started grinning. “You know Harry still talks to him, right?”

“Oh, god,” Joan rolled her eyes, a flash of memories coming back to her all at once: him directing their little election night performance, playing that stupid guitar in the office, his obsession with expensive colognes. “I can’t even imagine. That feels like a thousand years ago.”

Probably some ad-hoc salesman in flashy polyester suits, with some fake hippie wife.

“We were all kids,” Ken said, glancing at Cynthia with soft eyes.

While they were distracted, Joan gave Lane a playful look, and gently nudged his knee with hers underneath the table, trying to get him to smile in earnest. “Well. Some of us were.”

He glared at her, but his mouth twitched into something more amused before he could stop himself. Joan turned to the rest of the table, gesturing to their drinks.

“Let’s get another round. I think we ought to have a toast.”

After a glass of champagne and another whiskey, plus a half-hour of Joan and Kenny telling stories about the old Sterling Cooper, Lane’s mood had lifted visibly. Joan turned to him again, trying to prompt him into telling some stories of his own.

“What about the time Lewis got hired as a housepainter? I love that story.”

_He only got about half the sitting room done before the owner came home, started talking to him about the war, and invited him to stay for a pint, intending it to be a nice gesture, I suppose._

_So what happened?_

_Well. Supposedly, the subsequent morning began with the two of them waking up in full costume in the basement of the Old Vic. And then he went back home and painted the rest of the room! The man still paid him!_

_Jesus. Was the sex that good?_

“Lewis is your brother, right?” Cynthia ventured. Lane nodded, but gave Joan a look that said he’d prefer to tell another one.

“Nigel’s third-year exam,” she suggested instead, remembering how much Lane had laughed as he told her that story.

_He got so nervous, he misread the entire prompt. So he turned in his examination, you know, thinking that he’d done all right. It was supposed to be about the life stages of bacterial organisms, or something, and he’d written out several pages about the science, and all that—but you see—well, I ought to show you the title—_

_Oh, my god!_ Joan had actually cried laughing when she saw the words in print—The Growth Cycles of Orgasms. They’d giggled uncontrollably for minutes. _Did he even know what that meant?_

_No idea! And the head teacher was apoplectic—Becca, mortified—and I had to have a very serious talk with him—god, it was just—_

“How do you know all these stories?” Ken demanded.

Joan lifted one shoulder in a shrug, ready to make a joke, but when she snuck a look over at Lane, he met her eyes with a kind of guilty, questioning expression.

“What?” she asked.

He hesitated, and then nudged her knee with his. “Don’t you think we ought to tell them?”

Joan raised an eyebrow, suddenly understanding. “You want to?”

“Tell us what?” Ken frowned at the two of them, obviously lost.

Lane was still looking at her. She nodded her head once in a silent okay.

“Well,” Lane began, with a careful glance in Kenny’s direction, “it—I don’t quite know how to—where to begin, really—”

“Are you guys together?” Cynthia blurted, clearly too excited to wait.

“Yes,” Joan said quickly, just as Lane finished his sentence.

“We got married.”

The Cosgroves stared back at them in silent shock. Cynthia actually put a hand over her mouth. Ken set his whiskey down so quickly he knocked over his empty champagne glass. It landed harmlessly on the carpet and rolled away from the table leg, but he didn’t seem to notice. A passing waiter picked it up as he passed.

“It’s true.” When Joan glanced at Lane this time, she could feel him radiating pride, and gave him a little smile.

“How—I mean, when did this happen?” Cynthia finally sputtered. “Did you elope?”

Lane actually blushed. “Oh. Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. And we’ve been keeping it quiet at the office. Obviously. Didn’t want to make a fuss.”

“There’s been so much going on,” Joan added, as if it was a simple scheduling problem. Wedding ceremony, eleven months ago. Dinner tonight, six thirty.

“Your rings,” Cynthia glanced at Joan’s hand with a loud sigh, shaking her head like she’d just realized they were a matched set. “Oh, my god. How did I miss that? Let me see it.”

Joan stretched her hand forward over the table, obliging. Cynthia leaned forward to peer down at the diamond.

“Oh, honey, that’s beautiful.”

“Thank you. Lane picked them both out.” Joan pulled her hand back into her lap, and after a second, reached out and squeezed Lane’s knee under the table. He nudged her leg in response. She smiled again.

“But it—can’t have—you guys didn’t—” Ken was still sputtering out confused noises, staring from her to Lane like he had no idea what had just happened. “You haven’t missed work. And you’re still just—I mean, all the— _nobody’s said anything._ ”

He looked like he was ready to pull his hair out in frustration. Joan would have laughed if she didn’t think it would just make him crazier.

“Well, our secretaries know,” Lane was toying with a piece of his silverware. “Haven’t actually told anyone else.”

“Plus, we didn’t take a real honeymoon. Just a few half days,” Joan added.

Cynthia winked at her. “Good for you.”

Lane turned a little red. “Anyway. I’ve, er, got a picture from the day, if you’d like to see—a friend of ours did all the arranging. It was really very nice.”

He was smiling as he retrieved his wallet from his jacket pocket, and pulled out a photograph. Joan didn’t realize he kept one on him, and leaned over to see which one it was. It was from the later part of the night. Her hair was a mess, and Lane was without his jacket and hat, shirtsleeves rolled up in a haphazard way. They were dancing together in the crowd with hardly any space between them; she was touching his face with one hand, eyes playful, mouth curled in a smirk, and he was tilting his head as he grinned down at her, like he couldn’t wait to kiss her.

“Wow,” Cynthia sighed again. “Kenny, look.”

As soon as he saw the photograph, Ken turned pink and started laughing in a weird way, covering his good eye with one hand. He still looked shocked. Joan didn’t think they’d done that well at covering it up, especially in the last couple of months.

“You got _married_. Oh, my god.”

“Surprise,” Joan said dryly, exchanging a grin with Lane, and watching another delighted expression spread over Cynthia’s face.

**

Joan put down her index cards, wrinkling her nose at Lane. They were going over information for Friday’s dinner. “No, Clay went to a state school. Chapel Hill.”

“Oh, damn it,” Lane tossed his index card down with a grimace. It touched the lip of the coffee table and fluttered onto the floor. “Don’t know why I can’t remember that.”

“Their rival’s in Durham,” she told him gently. “Lucky Strike’s headquarters.”

“Heaven forbid we forget any detail about Lucky Strike.” Lane let out a breath, and rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. “Right. Let’s go again.”

“Okay,” Joan said, just as her buzzer sounded.

Before she could even reach out to answer it, the door opened, and Roger strode inside. The buzzer fell silent. Clara’s voice was audible from the hallway.

“Um—Joan?”

“She noticed,” Roger said, and shut the door.

Lane barely even looked up from his index cards, but it sounded like he wanted to roll his eyes. “Oh, hello, Roger. What brings you to Mrs. Harris’s office?”

“Well, for once it’s not just to shoot the breeze,” Roger walked forward and deposited a large manila folder onto Joan’s desk. It thumped loudly as it hit the wood, making Joan release an irritated huff.

“Jesus. What in god’s name is that?”

Roger lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “My will.”

Joan blinked back at him, eyes narrowing behind her glasses.

“Whole thing’s pretty boring,” he continued—very casually. “Thought Coop might outlive me, for one, but who the hell knows. Wrote out Margaret. El’s getting most of the money, but Kevin’s getting some, too, since he’s family.”

“Roger—” Joan was so scared she could hardly speak, but the other man interrupted her before she could finish the sentence.

“Hey, if you want to talk details, read it first. I made my lawyers work overtime to put that doorstop together.” His mouth twitched like he was going to smile, and he glanced over at Lane. “Talk it over with your husband. I’m sure he’ll have opinions.”

Joan flushed pink, and glanced down at her desk, very briefly, before looking back up. _Oh, god._ “You know.”

“Come on, Red. Give me some credit.” Roger plucked a cigarette from the holder on her desk, but didn’t light it, just toyed it between his hands for a second before sticking the filter end into his mouth. “You two must have bribed the right people. It’s like you dropped the iron curtain.”

Lane’s mouth was hanging open. “But—but how did you find out?”

Roger did smirk this time, giving Joan a look that said it should have been obvious. “Gabigail.”

Joan put two hands over her face, too furious to look at him. Damn it.

An audible snort from the sofa made her look up. Lane was watching Roger in a way that said he didn’t disagree with the nickname, clearly trying not to laugh, covering his mouth with one hand before pulling it away.

“Erm. Sorry. It’s—clever.”

“Yeah? Well, thank god one of you laughed.”

“We’ll look this over,” Joan fixed Roger with a glare that said he needed to go. “Thank you.”

“Many happy returns,” Roger waved a hand as he walked out, slinging the door closed behind him and whistling so loudly they could still hear it as he ambled down the stairs.

“Well,” Lane placed the rest of his index cards onto the table in a messy pile. “That was…unexpected.”

Joan just kept staring at Roger’s will, pressing her lips into a thin line to keep from blurting out the thought on the tip of her tongue. Why would he just drop this in her lap? “I can’t believe him.”

“Must be easier to just—leave it and go. Pretend it’s only another file.” Lane got up and walked toward Joan’s desk, pushing his glasses higher up his nose with one hand. His mouth was drawn into an anxious line. “But—but I daresay Roger may just beat out my brother for the title of best uncle, now. Although Kevin’s not seeing a penny of that—” he gestured toward the manila folder “—till he’s through school, at least. I don’t care if it’s a couple of swimming pools, or a whole collection of—of terrible art. He’ll have to learn the value of—erm—responsibility.”

She could hardly breathe against the tight cinching in her chest. Why was he babbling so much? What was he trying not to say? “What?”

“Yes,” Lane’s voice was still way too bright, as if he was trying to cheer her up or brace her to hear something unpleasant. “Er. I think we could glance through the, erm—through the papers now, if you—”

“Not now.” Joan felt like it was a struggle to keep her tone even. _Please, god, don’t make me talk about this._

“Oh. Well. Then perhaps I’ll just—I believe I’ll get a cup of tea. Bit thirsty.”

The second Lane closed the door behind him, Joan let out a deep, shuddering breath, trying to stay calm. He knows something. He’ll figure it out.

_He doesn’t know. It’s okay._

**

Meredith stood at the head of the conference room table with a stack of unopened envelopes, sorting them into three distinct piles. “Bank statement. Bank statement. Oh, that’s from Jim! It must be a card.”

A couple of wedding cards had drifted in over the past few weeks. She thought they must be telling people the news, now.

“Will you stop narrating everything the second your hands touch it?” Two seats down from her, Ginsberg shoved the sketchpad he was using onto the cluttered table. “I can’t concentrate.”

She made a confused face. “You said you didn’t like the quiet.”

Ginsberg groaned. “Forget what I said. Jesus. Just—do whatever you want.”

“Okay,” she said finally, and resumed her work. Glancing down at the next envelope, she let out an _oh!_ of surprise, put it into its own pile, then made a quick note on her stenography pad. Another letter from USCIS—the fourth this year. Maybe his paperwork finally went through. “That one’s urgent.”

Ginsberg looked over, his eyes lighting up with recognition. “Lane gets mail from USCIS?”

“None of your business.” Meredith put her notepad down.

“Oh, my god.” Ginsberg startled visibly in his chair, and almost fell backwards into the floor, putting one hand on the armrest to steady himself. “That’s it!”

“What?”

“They got married because—”

Meredith gave a little yelp of surprise, interrupting him in open-mouthed horror. _“You know they’re married??”_

“Wait, how the hell do you know?” he shot back, his voice getting louder. He let out a huge whoosh of breath. “Oh, my god. It’s been killing me. Every time I look at him and Joan together—”

“Shut up,” Meredith said quickly, watching as Cutler and Ted walked slowly down the hallway toward the conference room doors.

“What? How the fuck am I supposed to keep from—”

In desperation, she pushed the pile of mail aside, rushed over and kissed Ginsberg as hard as she could, practically falling forward against him, her hands gripping the sides of his hair. He went rigid, back arching, and made a strangled noise against her mouth, but before he could really kiss her back, a throat clearing in the room told her they weren’t alone.

She pulled back with a huff of breath, quickly smoothing down her hair. Michael was breathless and wild-eyed, staring at her. His hands white-knuckled the armrests of his chair. “Holy shit.”

Meredith snuck a peek to her right. Cutler and Ted were standing just inside the open door, identical looks of shock on their faces. She gave them an apologetic smile, even though she knew pale lipstick must have been smeared across her bottom lip. “Sorry. I should go.”

“Uh,” said Ted, not moving away from the door.

Cutler recovered first, and motioned that she could go through, nudging Ted aside with one arm as he held the door open for her. “Of course, dear.”

As she walked away, she felt almost dizzy with relief. That was close.

**

“Stan owed me a favor,” was all Pete had muttered in Joan’s ear before he invited Clay, Julius, and Roger to meet the blues bandleader at tonight’s club.

Once the four men were out of the booth and picking their way through a sea of tables toward the stage, Joan finally let out the deep breath she’d been holding all night. She gulped down two huge swallows of her whiskey and Coke, and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in one hand.

Clay obviously hated them. Julius was friendly, but too reserved to read very well, and Pete was in another one of his snit fits. It was like he was determined to prove Lane didn’t need to be there. He’d been coolly polite at best, and she was sure everyone had noticed. God. It was horrible. She felt very off kilter, although she was determined to salvage this meeting with a dinner invitation at the very least.

“Can I ask you something?”

She glanced over at Lane, who was leaning forward in his chair. They’d been so awkward around each other since Roger had dumped his paperwork in both their laps. It hadn’t provoked a fight. Worse, they hadn’t even talked about it, and almost four full days had passed. All she could do was hope Lane didn’t ask her _that question_. If he asked it out loud, she’d probably cry, he’d knock Roger’s teeth out, and the evening would be officially ruined.

“It’s—about the, er, will.”

She let out a sigh. _God damn it._ “You really want to do this now?”

“I’m sorry,” Lane said quietly. “I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

Oh, god. He really was going to ask her if Roger was Kevin’s father. How would she tell him? What would she tell him? Was he going to lose his temper? Was he going to want to leave her?

“I can’t believe this.”

“No, look here.” He set his jaw, as if forcing himself to gather his courage—to make himself speak the next few words aloud. “I just—I’m going to say one thing, and that’s it. I have to know the amount, or I’ll go mad.”

She stared at him, not understanding.

Lane kept his gaze fixed on her, although his fingers drummed nervously against the side of his glass. “If it’s a, er, significant sum, that will affect what we do with it until he’s—well, of age.”

Her heart was fluttering in her chest. “What?”

Lane brought out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead, then put it away. She watched the movement of his arm as if she were watching him from a long distance, blurry and unfocused. She felt like she was drunk, although she’d barely had a drop all night. “I—I don’t want to get into the reasons, and I—I don’t care why he’s done it. All I want to know about the damn thing is how much, and what we’re, erm, going to do. We have to—to be together on this, don’t you see?”

He finally met her eyes. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, until Joan bit her lip, and glanced around to make sure none of the others were nearby. Just stay away for a couple more minutes. Please.

“That’s it?” she asked, unable to stamp out the hope in her voice.

“Yes.”

Her hands shook with relief. She could have wept. _He doesn’t want to know. He won’t make you say it_.

“Okay,” she managed finally, shifting her glass from side to side so the ice clinked loudly in the bottom, watering down the soda. “Well. It’s a—it’s a, um, small fortune.”

Lane raised his eyebrows. She thought he might be trying to pinpoint the exact amount. The words _small fortune_ could mean anything, especially considering Roger’s family money.

Joan still couldn’t bring herself to say the number out loud. _Twelve million dollars._ He’d be richer than both of them put together. “So. It’s—we’re supposed to get a small portion of that for his expenses, whenever…something happens. Kevin gets the rest after he turns twenty one.”

A heavy silence filled the space between them.

“He’ll finish school first,” was the first thing Lane said, so quiet she could barely hear him above the roar of the crowd.

She still felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest. “What?”

Lane looked like he was bracing himself for an argument. “Boys that age—Joan, we’ve got to prepare him for—”

There was movement to her left near the entrance to the VIP lounge, and suddenly, Julius’s tall, muscular frame filled the path in front of their table. He fixed one cufflink of his debonair grey suit with one hand, an uneasy look gracing his broad features as he stared at them. “It seems as if I’m interrupting something.”

“Oh, no. We were just talking.” Joan gave Lane a small, significant glance, not needing to tell him to be quiet. He closed his mouth immediately and shifted his glass to his other hand, trying to seem as if they were just making casual conversation. She gestured to the open seat opposite hers. “Please, sit.”

“Just some—family business,” Lane told him, with as good a smile as he could manage. “That’s all.”

A perplexed smile came to Julius’s face as he settled into his chair.

“We’re married,” Joan didn’t have to fake the short, guilty laugh that followed. “Almost a year. We don’t usually tell clients that.”

Lane took another drink.

Julius still looked like he thought they might be putting him on, gaze focusing on Joan. “You mentioned your son, earlier.”

“Oh,” Joan summoned up a bright smile, “yes. My four-year old lives with us, but Lane’s son is fifteen. He lives in England.”

“You’ll forgive my surprise, of course. It’s not every day you meet a married couple in a Manhattan firm.”

Lane cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose it does seem a bit unusual, when you think about it. Agency partners, and all the rest.”

God, she was so glad Lane always spoke in understatements. In the right context, it really had a way of putting clients at ease. It sounded like a joke.

“Explains why Campbell didn’t mention your family, before.” Julius seemed thoughtful now, and even smiled. “I had wondered about that.”

“Ah,” Lane looked visibly surprised.

“Pete’s very particular,” Joan interrupted, knowing Lane wouldn’t be able to ad-lib some story about Rebecca that wouldn’t make her seem insane. “He believes – as Lane and I do – that the work should speak for itself. Not fly under the family name.”

Lane made a face that said that was exactly right, nodding his head. “Well. Not our names, anyway.”

Joan’s laugh was genuine again. She figured Julius would hear all about the Dykeman family history if he hadn’t already—unless Pete was downplaying that for some kind of workmanship angle.

“As I’m sure you know, Roger and Mr. Cooper have worked together for a very long time,” Lane added quickly.

Joan nodded, but gave Lane a look that said they were absolutely talking too much. Let him fill in the gaps.

Julius regarded them with a serious expression.

“My mother and father worked together for many years. We owned a small restaurant in the heart of the city, near Market Street.” He leaned back in his chair, steepling his powerful-looking hands together as he talked. “Now, Mama didn’t have the luxury of staying home, like the district’s more affluent ladies.”

“Mm.” Rich women, Joan guessed, picturing someone like Trudy Campbell.

“But she never complained. Never let us think she got a raw deal. And she worked harder than anyone I ever knew, God rest her soul.” His sharp gaze settled on Joan again. “That’s a mindset I wanted to emulate in my business practices.”

“The—family aspect?” Lane ventured carefully.

Julius pulled a cigar from his jacket pocket with a noise that said he wouldn’t put it that way. “These days, plenty of accounts men would rather sell me on efficiency, or speed, or any number of marketable factors.” He cut the tip from his cigar with a sleek silver tool. “While I believe a business can always be made quicker—more efficient—it can’t always be made whole when it’s divided.”

“You want to work toward a shared goal,” Joan took a risk, and cut through to what she thought might be the best hook. “With a true partner.”

The flame of Julius’s lighter flickered orange and yellow for less than five seconds before he flipped his lighter closed, and a large cloud of cigar smoke enveloped him, shadowing his mouth as he spoke. “Precisely.”

**

“He called to tell us not to bother with dinner,” Pete snarled at Roger, who made an innocent _who, us?_ gesture as he stretched out on Campbell’s sofa with the extension held loosely in one hand.

Okay, so the junior guy thought they were assholes, and both guys declined the offer to take the party elsewhere—which kind of put a damper on the night—but despite how early it had wrapped up, Roger would put money on the fact that they’d see Julius again. He kept talking to Joanie and Lane about all the managerial crap, and Dawn’s name kept coming up. That was the kind of stuff you weren’t interested in unless you wanted to settle down.

“You’re overreacting. What’d your girl write down again?”

“Do not interrupt me!” Pete hissed, the phone now pressed to his ear.

In the end, the call went okay. They wanted to get dinner before they left the city, at least.

“You like the Carlyle?” Roger was on a roll. “I could get you a lobster the size of your arm.” Across the room, Campbell was glaring daggers at him, mouthing something Roger didn’t really care about. He waved away his objections. “No entertainment, though. We’ll just be witness to a bunch of stiff dates.”

Julius chuckled. “And you’ll bring the Pryces, of course.”

“The—Lane and—Joan?” Pete’s eyes bulged like he didn’t know how to go about correcting this mishap.

Oh, boy. Well, Joanie’d hooked the client with some mystery. That was one way to do it. “Sure. You liked ‘em, huh?”

“A married couple in this business,” Julius sounded like he wanted to do more than just chuckle. “And agency partners, at that. Quite a surprise.”

Pete’s face turned red and pink and his mouth hung open soundlessly. He looked like a concussed carp. Roger didn’t even bother to stifle his deep laugh.

“You’re telling me.” He glanced at Pete, who was clearly shell-shocked, gripping the phone like he might drop it at any second. “Hey, make them fess up about their wedding. Lane’ll blush like a schoolgirl. It’s hilarious.”

After they hung up, Roger started laughing again at the ashen look on Campbell’s face. He looked like he’d just swallowed a golf ball.

“Why—why did you do that?”

Roger shrugged, and picked a piece of lint off his cuff. “What? It’s the truth. They eloped.”

“ _Jiminy crickets_.” Pete could barely sputter out the words. “And just when were the rest of us supposed to hear about this blessed event? Who else knows? Cooper? Cutler?”

“Please. Jim _went to the mechanic_ an hour ago, so I doubt he’s thinking about any of that shit.”

Pete frowned and shrugged, like he didn’t care where Cutler was. “Who cares where he’s gone?”

Huh. Did Campbell really not know what that meant?

“He’s taking a nooner, genius.”

**

Reaching over to grab the lighter from the nightstand, Ginger lit a cigarette with one hand, took a long drag, and rolled back over toward Jim, who quirked up an eyebrow at the sight. He always did love seeing her like this. It had been a few weeks since they’d been able to sneak away from the office.

“ _Un moment d'une saveur douce_.”

She exhaled in a cloud of smoke, and passed the cylinder to him with a smile. “I don’t know what that means.”

“A sweet taste.” He took it from her and inhaled deeply as he settled back onto the pillows. “A moment of indulgence.”

“Hm.” _You’d know._

They lay in silence for a minute or two, passing the cigarette back and forth, until Jim said:

“I assume you’ve realized Lane and Joan are sleeping together.”

Ginger made a repulsed noise as she glanced over. She’d noticed the way Lane looked at Joan, sure, but god, why would any woman want to settle for such a pathetic droopy dog? “Do we have to talk about this now?”

“He put a present in her office this week,” Jim held the cigarette with his finger and thumb, elegant fingers briefly pressed against his mouth as he smoked. Ginger went a little shivery thinking about those fingers. “For their _anniversary._ ”

Her brain locked onto the last word. She raised an eyebrow.

“You went snooping.”

“Don’t you want to know what he bought?” Jim asked lightly, which made her smirk. “Or would you prefer to know what he wrote?”

Her reply was automatic, but lacked heart. “Neither, thanks.”

“Darling, here’s a little evening wear for our anniversary,” he said in a silken voice, the drawl over the last word showing how stupid a line he thought that was.

She winced. “I hope it wasn’t lingerie.”

“Long pajamas.” He looked smugger than ever. “Cotton. Plain blue.”

Ginger stared at him. The cherry on her cigarette grew longer and longer. She put it into the ashtray by her side before the ashes could shed all over the bedsheets. “You mean to tell me after all that strutting around in tight skirts, fawning over any man with a pulse—”

_And that’s what she wears to bed with her boyfriend? Plain pajamas?_

His mouth twitched up into a genuine smile, and she felt his hand brushing up against her thigh. Meaning he was enjoying the irony. She’d worn the cutest little peignoir the last time they’d spent an afternoon together. Nothing as ugly as men’s pajamas, for god’s sake.

            “Ugh.” After another moment of thought, she stubbed out the cigarette, wondering if they had time to go another round before getting back to work. “Let’s talk about something else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should probably have been two chapters, considering how jam-packed it is, but I rewrote it like three times and it refused to change form, so! The fight with Gail has been a long time coming, but the reason I loved having it in this chapter is because it shows how Lane can stand up to Joan when he really believes something's wrong/she's not taking the right course of action. And then it made a nice counterpoint to the events surrounding Roger's will.
> 
> We'll probably have one more long chapter and an epilogue, so next update is when it all gets real. Hold onto your hats!


	12. Chapter 12

_late april_

 

“But Dawn, you don’t understand,” Meredith said with a sniff, and promptly ripped her tissue in half.

Lane winced as a single piece drifted out of her hands and under his sofa.

“What’s to understand? It’s just ridiculous!” Dawn said tersely, her back to the shared wall.

“But it’s not what you think, I promise—”

He held up a pleading hand, having been witness to this scene for nearly ten minutes. “Ladies, please, I really think we must—”

The door opened, and the second Joan took in the scene, her eyes flew to his in a way that suggested she wanted to start laughing. Lane gave her a pleading look, exhausted by this turn of events. _Help._

Joan raised an eyebrow, glancing around the group before folding her hands in front of her. “What’s going on here?”

Meredith spoke first, in a rush of breath. “Dawn’s trying to fire me!”

“She kissed Ginsberg in front of half the office! And she didn’t even _apologize!_ ”

Oh, god. Lane scrubbed two hands over his eyes. Every time he heard it, he wanted to flee the room.

“B-but it wasn’t like that!”

“I don’t care what it was like! You don’t just get to grab him up and—”

“Girls.” Joan’s voice had picked up the low, soft tone Lane recognized from after Kevin had pitched a tantrum; shorthand for _you will not disobey me_. “That’s enough. Mr. Pryce and I will speak to each of you separately. Meredith, we’ll start with you.”

“Joan,” Dawn looked visibly annoyed by this turn of events.

“Five minutes, Dawn.” Joan gave the other woman a look that said no one was to argue. “That’s all.”

Dawn departed with a huff of breath, closing the door behind her. In front of him, Meredith just kept crying, swiping at her wet eyes.

“Well, now.” Lane wasn’t really sure where to begin. “I’m sure we can find—”

“Please don’t let her fire me! It was an accident!”

Joan let out a sigh, and gestured to the chair opposite the sofa. “You look like a drowned rat. Come sit down.”

Meredith did. Joan met Lane’s eyes with a glare that said he had better come over, too, and so he got to his feet and sat down in his red armchair, watching his wife hand his secretary a handkerchief.

“What happened?”

Meredith sniffed, her voice high and thick with unshed tears as she spoke. “I was going through Mr. Pryce’s mail in the conference room, waiting for the next meeting. Ginsberg saw the return address on one of your letters, and he said something about your b-being married. And I knew he wasn’t supposed to know that, so I—I tried to tell him to be quiet, but he wouldn’t, and Mr. Cutler and Mr. Chaough were walking over, and I just—”

She got visibly misty again, looking from Joan and back to him like the reason for snogging her coworker was obvious. “What was I supposed to do?”

Lane sighed loudly. “You shouldn’t have had to do anything at all.”

Joan ignored him. “Okay. Bad decisions aside, you see why Dawn’s upset.”

As if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She was using her motherly voice again, the one she used when she was trying to walk Kevin through a very difficult problem.

“Because it’s unprofessional,” Meredith whispered, wiping her eyes again.

His wife actually smiled a little, although Meredith didn’t see it. Joan met his eyes briefly before turning her attention back to the girl, and smoothing her expression into something more serious. “Yes. But besides that, she’s jealous.”

_Jealous?_

Meredith seemed aghast, too, and glanced up like she couldn’t possibly have heard that correctly.

“Dawn’s jealous of—of me?” She turned toward Lane as if for confirmation, her bloodshot eyes wide and her face very pale. “Because of Ginsberg?”

“I-I haven’t the faintest idea.” Lane was flummoxed. How the hell had this gone from a fight about the secretarial to a fight over a young man? “Surely not.”

“But I don’t even _like him_ that way. He’s not my type, and really, he wasn’t that good of a—”

Lane held up a hand in warning. “Let’s—not get off topic.”

“Trust me. I know jealous when I see it.” Joan let out a brisk sigh, and fixed Meredith with a glance that said there was to be no more crying. “You’ll apologize to both of them for your recklessness.”

“Yes,” said Meredith immediately, sitting up straighter in her chair.

“And to Mr. Chaough and Mr. Cutler.”

“I will.”

“In the meantime, Mrs. Harris and I will decide on an appropriate punishment,” Lane interrupted, fixing Meredith with a look that said additional misbehavior wasn’t to be tolerated. “Rest assured, you’re not being fired.”

Joan gave the girl another tissue. “Go fix your face, and don’t say a word to anyone. I don’t want this distracting the other girls.”

“Okay.” Meredith blew her nose, took all her crumpled tissues to the trash, and departed with surprisingly little dramatics.

Unfortunately, by the time Dawn Chambers walked into his office, she seemed determined to have the girl pay for this petty crime.

“So you really think we should just let her walk around like nothing happened? She was necking with him in front of two senior partners!”

Lane had never even heard the woman raise her voice before today. She wasn’t even yelling, really; it was the type of short, aggravated tone you’d take with someone at the beginning of an argument.

“Dawn, she’s still going to be punished.” Joan seemed surprised, too, based on the lift of her eyebrow. “But it’s less fraught than making out. It was one kiss.”

“It’s bad behavior,” Dawn countered, pressing her lips together in a line. “And I can’t believe you of all people just want to tolerate it!”

Lane still couldn’t get the first conversation out of his head. Surely Joan was wrong, or was exaggerating the facts in order to keep Meredith calm. It wasn’t jealousy at all. Dawn was very sensible. Surely she wouldn’t let her own personal feelings get in the way of something like this.

And beyond all that, he had no idea what qualities Michael Ginsberg possibly possessed that might provoke jealousy in girls.

“Look. All I’m saying is that if you overreact, the others will turn on you. A brief suspension should be fine, if that’s what you decide to do,” Joan said briskly. “For a girl at her level, one or two days without pay are plenty of motivation to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Lane startled. Suspension? “Wait—what?”

“Well, I guess it’s better than doing nothing.” Dawn was clearly unhappy, judging by the way she was frowning.

“Don’t I get a say in any of this?” Lane tried to joke. He was half-joking, anyway. Meredith was his secretary, after all.

The women stared at him like he’d grown another head, and Joan glared at him in a way that meant it was not the time for humor.

“And I think you’d better talk to Ginsberg, too,” she added with a sigh as Dawn crossed to the door, like it was a task that the girl probably dreaded. “Make sure he sees why this is a problem.”

Lane managed to hide his surprise until Dawn had departed and the door closed behind her, at which point he felt free to return the glare his wife had given him earlier.

“ _Two days_ without a secretary?”

Joan raised a challenging eyebrow.

“Oh, and don’t think I didn’t notice the way you encouraged her. She is _not_ jealous. This was a perfectly straightforward issue, and now you’ve gone and stuck your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“If you say so,” Joan replied coolly.

Lane didn’t like the way she was smirking. “Well, I do say so, and you’re wrong. I’m sorry, but you are, and that’s the end of it.”

**

Two soft taps sounded at the door, followed by Dawn’s voice.

“Michael? Can I come in?”

Ginsberg basically shot upright like he’d been fired out of a cannon, almost falling out of his chair. Stan watched as the kid jerked and flailed for balance, knocking papers off the desk as he went. 

“Uh—hang on a sec! Be right there!”

He shoved his chair back underneath his desk, closed two files, and kicked a pile of figure-drawing books into the corner so they just surrounded the base of the dead plant.

“Why is Dawn visiting you during lunch?” Stan asked first. “And why does she get to call you Michael?”

“Will you get out of here already?”

“Seriously?” He lifted his hands in a shrug, gesturing to the drawing table. “We present in an hour. Thank Lou for making me work overtime.”

“Fuck! Well, just shut up and draw, then,” Ginsberg pushed past him and opened the door. Dawn’s high heels tapped the tile as she walked in, the door clicked closed, and they sat down at Peggy’s desk, judging by the rustling.

“Hey. Uh. So. What’s—I guess you’re not here on official business, huh?”

“No,” Dawn sniffed out an amused noise. Stan raised an eyebrow. Jesus. She laughed at that lame joke? “Clearly.”

“Yeah.”

Dawn let out a small cough. Ginsberg’s foot kept tapping the tile like he was real antsy.

“Look,” he said finally, voice cracking, “I want you to know, I didn’t have anything to do with it. She kissed _me_ , and that’s it—”

 _“Whoa,”_ Stan blurted out before he could help it. Who the hell had the kid kissed around here?

“Hey, either shut it, or leave!” Ginsberg snapped.

Stan winced. He couldn’t afford twenty minutes away from the table—and he also wanted to hear whatever the hell this was. “Sorry. Shutting up.”

Ginsberg let out a breath, voice going up a couple of decibels. “Don’t pay attention to him. The artist is a _real shithead_ sometimes _._ ”

“Well, look,” Dawn sounded more than a little annoyed, although her voice was as quiet as ever. “I just wanted you to know this isn't personal. Whatever you and Meredith have—”

_Meredith?_

“Listen to me: we got nothing.” Sounded like Ginzo was panicking. “I mean, there oughta be some kind of word for the—the nothing that’s there. She’s—you’ve seen her. She’s like a weird Victorian Kewpie doll! I don’t want to kiss that! Especially not in front of those assholes!”

Dawn didn’t say anything. Ginsberg let out a breath.

Stan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from howling. _What the fuck, Ginzo._

“Anyway. I’m real sorry if it caused trouble with you and Joan. I know you hate that kind of shit, and now you’ve gotta deal with Cutler and Ted and all the—”

“Michael.”

“And, I mean, I can keep avoiding Meredith, but she’s got some kinda weird locating power, because she always knows where I am, even when it’s—”

“Michael.”

“And for the record, I absolutely _did not_ want her to—you know, she just grabbed me up by the front of my shirt, and it was just—I mean—”

“Michael, take a breath before you pass out,” Dawn said sternly—and oh my god, was little miss office manager _flirting_ with the kid? This was insane.

Ginsberg shut his mouth fast, for once.

“I believe you,” she said simply.

There was a long pause.

“Oh,” the kid said.

Another long pause.

“Anyway.” Dawn sounded like she was getting to her feet. “I can’t stay, but I just wanted to…clear that up.”

“Oh. Well, uh, yeah. That’s—thank god, huh?”

“Still on for lunch Friday?”

_What._

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. Um, I was thinking—there’s this place that does a weird kind of cheese sandwich, kinda spicy, and I thought you might—”

“Sounds good,” said Dawn, and after they exchanged goodbyes and the door opened and closed, Stan wheeled his chair around, already clapping his hands.

“Michael Ginsberg—”

“ _Shut up.”_

“Getting _lunch_ —”

“You tell anyone and you’re dead fucking meat.”

“Man, _you_ didn’t even tell me!” Stan folded his arms across his chest, faking a pout. “My own pal, dating the office manager.”

“What? We’re not dating.” Ginzo scoffed. “We’re just friends.”

Stan was going to laugh even before the kid finished that sentence, and when he saw how puffed up Ginsberg looked, he did laugh, harder than he meant to. “Oh, shit. You’re not kidding.”

“Will you quit it? It’s lunch. Couple of people sharing a meal, instead of standing around here, eating vending machine garbage with you two jerks. There’s nothing romantic in it!”

Stan was still giggling when the door opened again.

“What’s so funny?” Peggy pulled off her sunglasses, pushed the door closed with a foot and set a large sack of hamburgers onto her desk.

“He’s dating Dawn and doesn’t know it,” Stan choked out, and had to duck behind his chair as Ginzo threw a romance paperback at his head. “And also he made out with—” one of Peggy’s encyclopedias, volume V, almost hit him in the forehead, “— _shit_ , man, what the fuck?”

**

Slowly but surely, they’d begun to break the news of their marriage to more friends and family; it was so familiar it was like a ritual performance by now. Dinner with Jim and Polly and a casual _oh by the way_ dropped just before the entrees hit the table; Jim actually got choked up, clapped Lane on the back and hugged Joan like she was a long lost relative. A lunch meeting with Andy about checking accounts – theirs, because they needed a joint one, and Joan didn’t want to change banks – had him gaping at them for nearly twenty minutes. _I’m sorry. You’re gonna have to explain this again. You did what?_

The best reveal hadn’t even been in person. Lane had added four lines to the end of a letter he’d written to his brother, telling her the idea with a little chortling snicker. _Perhaps I should just put it at the end. P.S., I’m married now._ Joan had grinned as she ran her hands through his hair. _Be sure to tell Lewis how great I am._ Lane had cheerfully added this, narrating the words aloud as he wrote. _New wife a dish. Been married a year. Say hello to the flatmate._ The phone call they’d gotten a few days later had made him howl with laughter.

So, when the phone rang at 4AM one morning, Joan sat up with a groan, glanced over at Lane, who was snoring with an arm flung over his face, and blearily shuffled into the living room to pick up the extension. It was probably Lewis again.

“Hello?”

A woman answered, her patrician accent crisp and almost contrite. “Yes, hello. I’m looking for KL-5784. Have I got the wrong number?”

Joan froze, mid-yawn. She knew that voice. “Not if you’re looking for Lane.”

Rebecca’s tone turned much frostier. “Well. To whom am I speaking?”

Joan pushed her bangs out of her eyes with one hand, suppressing a sigh, and hoping Rebecca hadn’t forgotten her completely. “Rebecca, it’s Joan.”

A long silence fell over the line. When she spoke again, Rebecca sounded astonished.

“ _Joan Harris?_ ”

Oh. Well, she definitely remembered.

“Pryce,” Joan corrected, leaning against the edge of the sofa, too tired to put a full explanation into words, or to soften the blow.

“What?”

“Harris Pryce. We got married.”

Rebecca actually scoffed, like this was so unbelievable. “I beg your pardon?”

“Look. We’re all asleep,” Joan scrubbed at her eyes with her fingertips. “It’s four A.M. Is this an emergency?”

“No,” Rebecca’s voice was forceful and clipped. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Okay.” Joan let out a sigh. “Goodbye.”

She was too delirious to care about practically hanging up on the woman, and after she closed the door to their bedroom and crawled back into bed, she heard Lane mumble something as he turned over.

“Was’t phone?”

“Just Rebecca,” Joan sighed, and shut her eyes. “’S fine.”

“Wha—my Rebecca?”

“Have any other exes with that name?”

Apparently, she was doomed not to sleep anymore tonight.

“What if something’s wrong with Nigel?” Lane yanked at the tie of his bathrobe, cinching it around his middle with a huff as he shoved the blankets back into place. Joan winced at the bright light as he flicked on a lamp. “She wouldn’t ring me up for no reason!”

“I asked if it was an emergency. She said no,” Joan growled, putting her hands over her face and leaning back into the pillows that were balanced against the headboard. She still hadn’t gotten out of bed. If they stopped fighting right this second, she could get forty-one more minutes of sleep.

“Joan, you’re being deliberately obtuse! You know why I’m upset!”

“Of course I know!” Joan uncovered her face, glaring at Lane as he paced on the wide expanse of carpet between the bureau and the bed. They’d had this conversation a thousand times in the last few weeks. _If we tell Becca, then she’ll tell Nigel, and he has to hear it from me or he’ll be livid._ “It’s not my fault you haven’t told him the truth!”

Lane looked hurt. She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I told you why,” he said in a low voice.

Nigel had been hungover the last two times they’d spoken on the phone, which made Lane furious, and got him to put off the big announcement, again. Even worse, Nigel’d been rude about it; the last phone call had ended with him yelling at his father to leave him alone, and hanging up on him.

“Honey, you can’t keep calling him on Sunday mornings.” Joan decided not to mention that Nigel wasn’t going to stay out of weekend parties anytime soon. At this rate, the kid would probably be hungover until he hit his thirties. “I know you have a plan” —he didn’t— “but it isn’t working.”

“It’s not as easy as you make it sound. He’s—this is a delicate situation, for god’s sake.”

Meaning he was worried Nigel would throw a fit about her, or get jealous of Kevin, or side with his mother, or all of the above. Joan didn’t want her husband to feel rushed, but she also didn’t want to keep up some story forever, or keep telling Nigel she was Lane’s _special friend_ , or whatever euphemism he was still using. They’d have to tell Nigel the whole truth eventually, and the sooner, the better.

Joan held out her arms, motioning him over with one hand. “Come over here.”

“No. I’m not in the mood.” Lane folded his arms across his chest.

“Lane, I’m trying to apologize,” she retorted quietly, raising an eyebrow at him in a way that meant this kind of thing was rare. “Will you just come here?”

After a moment, he trudged over. Once he got to her side of the bed, they hugged awkwardly for a few seconds until Joan pulled back a little, kissing his temple.

“I love you,” she said softly. “You know that.”

Lane straightened up with a grumbled noise of assent, one hand lingering on her shoulder.

“I just want all this out in the open,” she continued, hoping she was saying this the right way. “I’m tired of worrying about how the kids will react. We can rip the bandaid off. Is that so awful?”

“No,” Lane said finally, and caressed her cheek with the fingertips of one hand, as if to prove he wasn’t upset. But Joan knew that look. He was worried.

“Okay.” She patted his hand in an absent way before he pulled back, and glanced down at the alarm clock as he crossed the room toward the wardrobe. Thirty-two more minutes, if she wanted to try and doze. But she was never going to be able to sleep now. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Under the spray, she stood with one hand braced against the tile, breathing deeply as steam rose around her in little ebbing wisps.

_It’ll be settled soon. It’ll be settled soon._

**

Dinner that Friday was oddly quiet; Kevin was sullen, Joan had been stuck in meetings all afternoon, and Lane was daydreaming a bit and so it wasn’t until Joan kicked him in the shoe and he noticed distinct sniffles coming from Kevin’s side of the table that Lane realized something was the matter.

He glanced at Joan, who put down her fork, and made a face that said she had no idea what this was about. She cleared her throat.

“What’s going on?”

Kevin turned to his mother, his lip quivering as if his heart was utterly broken. “I don’t w-want Lane to be my dad.”

The words were like a blow to the gut.

Kevin must have seen the shock in their faces, because he started crying in earnest. Lane put down his napkin to go and calm him, but Joan’s hand was on his arm before he could get up.

He didn’t know what to do now, and so when she spoke up, voice careful and calm, like they must have misheard, he was glad for the moment of reprieve.

“Sweetie, what are you talking about?”

Kevin sounded so distressed Lane could hardly understand him. “If he’s my dad, he won’t stay, and he has to be here.”

He bowed his head so it was almost hidden by the lip of the table, putting his palms over his eyes so they couldn’t see his face as he blubbed.

Lane was completely baffled. “But—why on earth would I go?”

“My real dad left when I came—” Kevin hiccupped, turning to Joan, “and yours left—” he turned to stare at Lane, eyes and cheeks wet, “and you _can’t!_ ”

Lane heard, rather than saw, Joan’s small gasp at the words. He knew he could not glance at her without getting too choked up to speak, and reached for her hand underneath the table.

She gripped it so tightly he thought his fingers would go numb.

“Lad, I’m not going anywhere,” he said first, helpless. “I—I love you, and I love your mama, and we’re all going to be together for a very, very long time.”

This did absolutely nothing to help. Lane let go of Joan’s hand and got up from his chair, rounding the table until he was kneeling next to Kevin’s chair. He put a hand on the little boy’s shoulder; Kevin leaned forward until his face was pressed against Lane’s arm and chest.

“There you are,” Lane said, and let the boy weep into his shoulder for a minute or so before speaking again. “That’s better. Now. You know what the word married means, hm?”

Kevin sniffed, and wiped his nose using the side of Lane’s sleeve. “The—the man and lady get dressed up and go see a minster. Like on TV.”

“Well, sort of,” Lane couldn’t help smiling a little at Kevin’s idea of marriage. “But it’s more than that. You stand next to the woman you love, and you—you hold her hand, and make her an official promise.”

“What do you promise?” Kevin’s voice was a whisper.

Joan cleared her throat. When Lane glanced over, he saw tears shining in her eyes. “That you’ll take care of each other no matter what.” She gave Kevin a watery smile. “You promise to be a family. Like we are. You, and me, and Lane, and Nigel.”

Lane nodded emphatically, brushing a piece of hair behind the boy’s dear little face and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I picked you over everyone else in the world.”

The corners of Kevin’s mouth twitched up.

“And I love you. And I’m staying right here.”

It wasn’t until Lane was tucking Kevin into bed that the boy brought this subject up again, in a shy little whisper.

“Wilson says having a dad is really cool.”

Oh, no. Lane steeled himself for more tears, and fumbled through the dim room to sit down on the side of the bed, next to Kevin’s legs.

“I think it is, if you’ve—got a good one. Or if you are a good one.” He pressed a palm to Kevin’s cheek, and tried to smile. “Mine wasn’t very nice, so I’m not sure what it’s _supposed_ to be like.”

Kevin made a surprised noise. “He wasn’t?”

Lane shook his head, glancing down at the comforting blocks of yellows and blues on the patterned bedspread before he realized the boy might not have seen the gesture. “Some people aren’t ready to be fathers, when the, er, time comes. Mine wasn’t. Yours wasn’t. It’s—nothing to do with you.” He rubbed the side of Kevin’s arm in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “You’re a very dear boy.”

The lad was quiet for a moment.

“Mama says you could still be my dad, if I wanted.”

Lane’s throat got very tight. His voice cracked over the next two words as he reached out to touch Kevin’s hair again. “It’s true. If you wanted that.” He swallowed. “I’d like to, very much.”

Out in the hall, over the thick silence, he could hear the distant, dim roar of the vacuum. Joan always cleaned the house if she was too upset to sit still. Before Lane could break it, or give Kevin a goodnight kiss, the lad was shoving his blankets aside and throwing his arms around Lane’s neck.

Lane’s throat tightened again, but he didn’t say anything, just laid a gentle hand on Kevin’s back as he held him. When he tried to put the lad back down onto his mattress, Kevin made a whimpering noise, and squeezed him tightly.

“I’m staying right here.” Lane guided them into a prone position, so the boy had his head on the pillow, at least. Kevin curled closer. “I’ll stay till you fall asleep.”

He began humming a nameless tune in an attempt to get him to drop off, and when he woke up the following morning, the bed was empty, his glasses were askew on his face, and sunlight was streaming through the open blinds.

Little footsteps thundered up and down the hall, and there was a noise like sheets rustling across the room—someone by the bed. Lane squinted, fumbled for his glasses, and pulled them down onto his nose to reveal Joan, smoothing the comforter over the other bed.

“Lo,” he mumbled, trying to flatten down his hair.

A wide smile came to her face as she glanced over. “How’d you sleep?”

“Mmph,” Lane winced as he sat up. His right arm ached, and he was fairly sure Kevin had kicked him in the legs all night. “What time is it?”

“Late.” Joan crossed to the bedside and dipped her head down to kiss him. “But I don’t care.”

**

“You wanted to see me?”

“Mrs. Harris.” Cooper gave her a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. “Shut the door, please.”

Joan did, and slipped off her pumps before crossing over to the desk and taking a seat. The second she was settled, he produced a piece of paper from the pocket of his suit jacket, and slid it across the wooden surface.

She didn’t open it. If he had lifted an invoice from yet another client file, Dawn was going to blow a gasket.

“A particular rumor has been floating about the office,” he began, steepling his fingers together as he leaned forward. “Several of our colleagues have taken pains to approach me and discuss it at length.”

 _Shit._ Joan met his gaze head-on. So this wasn’t regarding business. “About me and Lane?”

He raised an eyebrow as if in confirmation. She decided to test the waters.

“What did Cutler say?”

Cooper made an amused noise. “He had concerns about your discretion.”

“Well, he and Ginger take his car to _the mechanic_ on a monthly basis. Forgive me if I’m skeptical about Jim’s idea of discretion.” She took a breath, preparing herself to admit the truth. “Lane and I got married, last April. I’m surprised Roger didn’t tell you. He’s known for months.”

“Yes. He mentioned that,” was all Cooper said.

“Well, we’re not on love leave, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Joan picked up the slip of paper now, and opened it to find a photocopy of a familiar page of cancelled checks—the same page she had confronted Lane with over a year ago—a page that was now hidden in her file drawers at home.

“When—did you xerox this?” she asked, setting the paper aside. Her heart was thudding loudly in her ears. He knows. He knows. “How long have you known?”

“Mrs. Harris—” Cooper stopped, and blinked, as if he’d just realized that this was no longer her name. “My apologies, dear. You don’t seem surprised.”

“No.” Joan rephrased her question. “Are you going to fire him?”

“My dear, Lane’s stayed loyal to this firm for many years.” Cooper made a motion for peace, reached out and plucked the paper from the desk top, and put it back into his jacket. “Despite various personal hardships, it seems he’s cultivated a sincere appreciation for the way this country conducts its business.”

 _Jesus._ He always did have a thing about loyalty. Joan wasn’t sure if this meant he had resigned himself to keeping Lane because it was good for the business, or keeping Lane because he had served out his probation, essentially. She tried not to let the sudden flash of anger show on her face. He let Lane’s future hang in the balance like a damn puppetmaster, and said nothing. Who would do that?

Cooper continued speaking. “I do find his decision to move forward with the naturalization process intriguing, considering his financial situation at the time of petition. A cursory reading of those documents suggests he would not have qualified for citizenship, had he been unmarried.”

Joan swallowed. So this was why she was here. Someone must have called him for an interview, or sent him the packet when it was first submitted. Or—the thought dawned on her suddenly—Lane could have gone to him in private before any of this had even begun.

“What did you tell them?”

“I simply received a call from the state department, some months ago, and anticipate a second at any time. Your words won’t change the nature of our discussions, of course. Consider it part of my own personal edification. I’d appreciate your candor regarding what many would consider an _irrational_ decision.”

Joan did not look away from the old man’s piercing gaze. If this was some kind of test, she was damn well going to pass it. She’d have to be brutally honest.

“We got married because he wanted to stay. And I wanted him.”

Cooper’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“There were other reasons, but that’s what it boils down to.” She let out a breath, fighting to stay calm. “He got double-taxed. I found out. And we made decisions based on the problem at hand. _Better_ decisions. That’s it.”

“In a word, selfishness.”

She nodded once. It sounded awful when he put it that way. “Yes.”

Cooper’s face split into an avuncular smile—a real smile—as he began to chuckle. The sound unnerved Joan so much she almost started laughing, too. He was actually…happy about this?

“Very good.” He leaned back in his chair as if this was all he had been waiting to hear, eyes twinkling. She had no idea why he was so thrilled; it wasn’t rational at all to admit you did something this stupid for love.

“Oh.” She was completely lost for words, but couldn’t keep the small smile from her face. “Well. That’s…thank you.”

“You’ll inform the rest of the partners, of course.”

“Of—of course,” Joan said dully, still reeling as she got to her feet. It wasn’t a request. “I’m sorry you had to be involved.”

“Pay it no mind, dear,” said the old man, reaching now for his glasses. His amusement had dimmed into his usual briskness. “You may go.”

Joan put her shoes back on, thanked Cooper again, and walked out of his office, blinking in surprise under the harsh lights of the lobby. Across from her, Lane was sitting on the sofa by reception, and when he saw her emerge from the doorway, he smiled at her, and waved a little.

She smiled back. A stupid little happy feeling bubbled up in her chest as she walked over to the sofa.

“He’s meeting you, too?”

“Busy day, apparently,” was all Lane said with a shrug, seeming oblivious.

“Lane,” said Caroline’s voice from across the hall, before Joan could respond, “he’s ready for you.”

“Well. I suppose I’d better go in.” He touched her arm, briefly, after he got up. “See you later.”

“Okay,” said Joan, and couldn’t help laughing a little as she sat down in the middle of the sofa. _He knew. He knew and he didn’t care._

“Joanie? You all right?”

“Yes,” Joan called to Caroline, still laughing a little, and trying to hide this by pretending to fix a stray lock of hair. “I’m fine.”

**

“I swear I’ve met you somewhere before.” Jerry scratched at his neck as the group took their seats around the conference table, staring at Lane. “Do you guys ever take clients to the symphony?”

Houghlin-Mifflin was in the office today, and they were discussing the newest ad campaign that would roll out in the fall. Today was their first concepts meeting: Stan and Ginsberg sat sprawled to Joan’s left, Pete and Jim bookended the two textbook reps, Jerry and Howard, Ted sat next to Jim and Roger and Lane were on her immediate right.

“Oh, no, not—often,” Lane replied.

“He’s more of a Broadway man,” Joan said with a smile. Lane made an amused noise.

“Ah, well,” Jerry waved a dismissive hand, “I don’t go down to Broadway much. All we do is die by committee in the mayor’s office.”

“The beauty of bureaucracy,” quipped Jim.

“Well,” Lane tapped his clipboard with the nib of his pen, smiling at Jerry in a way that meant he was trying to be friendly. For some reason, the two of them had hit it off at lunch. Joan had no idea why. “City Hall’s not bad, at least.”

“Good point,” Jerry agreed. “Could have put us in some windowless garage.”

“You oughta see the women who come through there.” Howard let out a low whistle. Jim and Pete laughed. “All dressed up for the ceremonies and what not. Some of ‘em are real knockouts.”

Jerry snapped his fingers, once. “Howie, you’re a genius.” He glanced at Joan and Lane in turn, grinning ear to ear. “We met at your wedding.”

A brief silence blanketed the table.

“Wait.” Stan was grinning. “Seriously?”

Ginsberg sagged forward in his chair with a loud sigh of relief. “Oh, my god. I did it. I kept the secret.”

Joan ignored his babbling, and just kept holding Jerry’s gaze. “Of course,” she said slowly, as if she knew exactly what he was talking about. She had a vague memory of a group of suits from that night, but couldn’t have named any of them to save her life. “ _Jerry._ I can’t believe it.”

“Yeah!” He was grinning. “Your maid of honor hit me with a champagne cork. What’s her name…Kit? Katie?”

Kate had also made out with him later, Joan thought suddenly. Oh, god.

“That’s her.” She kept her voice warm, as if they’d all become fast friends ever since. “I’m glad you remembered.”

“You met Kate?” On the other end of the table, Roger was just laughing. “Jesus. I would’ve paid to be a fly on the wall.”

“But—” Ted looked as shocked as if they’d just started cartwheeling across the conference table. Joan was waiting for him to start pulling out his hair. “I didn’t even—when was the _wedding?_ ”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jerry glanced at the two of them for confirmation, his brow drawn down in thought. “About a year ago?”

“That’s right,” said Joan, exchanging an amused glance with Lane. To her left, Ginsberg was still slumped forward, head resting against the table. Stan hid a laugh behind one hand as he got up from the table and sidestepped past the others.

“S’cuse me.”

He slipped into the hallway and doubled over with a muffled cackle the second the doors closed; he stood there for barely a second before stumbling toward creative. To tell Peggy, Joan guessed. She had to fight to keep the smirk off her face.

A few seconds later, Lou strode out of his office and pushed open the conference room door, a couple of files balanced over one arm—oblivious.

“Sorry I’m late. What’d I miss?”

**

“Now,” Meredith was standing in front of Lane’s desk, reading off her stenography pad as she outlined the week’s routine, as was their usual custom. “Your Friday afternoon appointment got canceled, so there’s a little free time between two and three. _Do not_ use it as snack time, because you’ve got an early dinner with Joan and Gail at six.”

“Duly noted,” Lane huffed, glancing over at the tea set as he spoke. He had more willpower than that, thank you. “Any mail today?”

Meredith handed him a small packet of letters. “A few things from Saturday. One from your brother, a couple of personal invoices, and one from USCIS.”

He thumbed quickly to the USCIS letter, still unopened. “What—what did they want?”

“I don’t know,” Meredith said, but something about the quality of her voice—the expression on her face—made him pause.

Lane plucked the letter opener from his pencil case, sliced open the flap, and took out the single page that had been tucked inside. It was very brief.

 

_Dear Sir:_

_You are hereby notified to appear for your naturalization ceremony..._

_After taking the Oath of Allegiance, you will become a United States citizen…_

 

“What did they say? Is it good news?”

“Er. Yes.” Lane had to swallow to speak around the lump in his throat. “Get—get Joan.”

Meredith rushed out with a yelp, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Lane got to his feet, and took several shaky breaths in an attempt to calm his nerves, but found he was so excited he could hardly stand still. He’d done it. After all of the heartache, after everything they’d gone through, he was going to get to stay here. He was going to keep his family together.

There was a murmur of voices out in the hallway, and in an instant, Joan appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath, as if she’d run all the way down.

“What is it?” she asked, eyes worried, tracking his every movement. “Meredith said—”

He was hardly able to form a sentence, just waved the letter with one hand.

“I—I got it. My citizenship.”

She made a wordless noise of delight and crossed the room immediately, arms open; the second she embraced him he pulled her as close as he could manage. He was choked up and grateful and so unbelievably happy that all he could do was laugh and weep and hold her tight. They’d really done it.

“I can’t believe it,” he said over and over, dashing tears away from his eyes with the side of one hand. “God. I just can’t believe it.”

_I’m going to be an American._

Joan pulled back to look at him, holding his face between her palms, and stroking his tears away with the pads of her thumbs. Her blue eyes flashed and sparkled as she held his gaze. “I’m so proud of you.”

Of him? She’d made it all possible!

Lane got a little weepy again, and after a couple of minutes, when they had finally released each other and he was much calmer, they began looking over the letter in earnest.

“Proper attire must be worn,” Joan said with a sniff, grinning at him as she dabbed under her eyes with his handkerchief. “So don’t forget.”

Lane reached out and took the thing from her, laughing at the joke and elbowing her in a playful way. “Very funny.”

Another idea occurred to him—the children, we’ve got to tell the children. “Erm. We’ll tell Kevin later, of course, but I-I’d like to call Nigel, if you have some time. I don’t want to wait.”

“Tonight?” she asked. Lane shook his head.

“Actually, I was thinking now. This instant.” He beamed at her. “I want to tell the whole world.”

_I want him to come to the ceremony._

He rounded the desk and hit the button for his private line before he could lose the nerve, holding onto this golden feeling of happy accomplishment as he sat down, lifted the receiver, and carefully dialed Nigel’s number.

“Erm,” he turned to Joan, who was gazing out the window, and felt suddenly shy. “Will you—hold my hand?”

The fond smile that lit up her face in answer made him a bit weak-kneed, and without saying a word, she walked over, perched on the edge of his desk, and took his hand in both of hers, kissing the backs of his knuckles before lowering his palm down to rest on her lap.

Lane concentrated on the wonderful feeling of her fingers threaded through his, and listened to the low _pip-pips_ as the call rang through to England. By the time he’d reached the dormitory and a familiar voice crackled down the line, he tightened his grip on Joan’s hand. _It’s time._

“Dad? What’s going on?”

“Nigel. Hello. I—ah. Everything’s fine.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve—well, I’ve got some very good news, and I wanted to share it with you first….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, there was a ton of stuff I had to cut from this chapter in order to keep it this length! I wanted to do an entire subplot about Betty's funeral, and Don maybe coming back to the agency, and wind in some more Dawn/Shirley subplots to the Cooper stuff, but it just wouldn't fit. I did, however, write up a couple tiny scenes that wouldn't leave my brain alone--click through to the epilogue to read those. :)


	13. epilogue

 

_june_

 

Joan huffed out an annoyed noise as they walked toward the square of park surrounding City Hall. They'd only come over here to run a quick errand and maybe get a quick bite to eat, not spend the afternoon milling around. “Honey, I don’t want to go walking right now.”

“Oh, it’ll only be a moment,” Lane glanced left and then right as they arrived at the curb. “Only—here, we’ve got to cross before the light changes. Quickly.”

“Lane,” she said again, when they hit the other crosswalk and were safely out of foot traffic. “I’d rather go to lunch.”

“And we will, darling, I promise.” He glanced around again, peered through the trees, and seemed more annoyed than before. “Oh, for god’s sake. It’s already half past.”

“What?” Joan demanded. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Nothing,” Lane waved a dismissive hand. “It’s—we won’t be long.”

“Honey,” she pleaded again, deciding to try a different tactic, and taking a seat on the nearest bench. “I’m exhausted. I really don’t want to stay over here.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but—oh, damn it all,” he blurted out, gesturing toward a tiny, slow-moving speck in the distance, which was clearly holding up traffic. Several cars were agitating to speed past it, horns blaring. “You were supposed to cut through the park! We had this timed precise— _augh._ ”

Joan startled in surprise when she realized what the thing actually was. “Is that a horse and carriage?”

 _Why the hell would they be all the way out here?_  When Lane turned to her with an anguished look, one palm pressed against his forehead, Joan finally felt the other shoe drop. _The index cards. The interviews._

“What did you do?” She fixed him with a suspicious look.

He sighed. “Well, it’s—“ he threw one last glance toward the slow-moving carriage, then let out a long breath, “oh, never mind the blasted thing. I’ll just do without it.”

Joan stared at him with wide eyes as he slowly knelt down in front of her, and reached for her hand.

“Oh, my god. You’ll get all dirty!” she exclaimed first.

“Never mind that.” A shy smile crept over his face. Joan kept very still as he spoke. “You—well, a long time ago, you said you’d always wanted a nice proposal. That you’d never got one before. And I—I just kept thinking about how silly it was that you hadn’t.”

“Lane,” she said quietly, but he shook his head, and reached into his jacket to pull out a small velvet box.

“Because you’ve made me so utterly happy. And I love you, and I would marry you again in an instant.”

When he showed her what was inside the box, she was so surprised she had to put a hand over her mouth.

Nestled in black velvet was a shiny gold-painted ring dotted with tiny air bubbles, and with a thick seam running straight through the middle: cheap plastic. It would probably turn her finger green.

“It’s the one Katie bought at the flea market,” he said in a low voice. “Convinced her I could find something better for the day, you know. That's when I got yours.”

“I remember.” She extended her left hand, mouth pursed, not sure if she was going to laugh or cry. It was so sweet of him to go to this much trouble—to have kept this for over a year, all for one romantic gesture. “I can’t believe you kept this.”

He took the ring from the box as if it were made of precious metal, and held it an inch or so away from her third finger, looking up at her with soft eyes. “Well, what do you say? Will you stay married to me, darling?”

“Of course I will,” Joan sighed, and kissed him as he slid the ring into place, ugly plastic now stacked on top of her wedding diamond and band. She couldn’t stop smiling at the stupid thing. She wanted to kiss Lane until he was breathless. “Now get up. You’ll hurt yourself.”

When he tried to stand, he made an alarmed noise, and met her wordless glance with an apologetic face. “Oh. Hang on.”

“Bad knee?” Joan guessed. He nodded.

She extended her other hand; he took it, and slowly got to his feet, laughing and blushing once he’d finally regained his balance.

“Thanks.”

Joan stood up and kissed his cheek, enjoying the way he grinned.

“You aren’t too cross with me, are you?” he asked, as the carriage inched closer. It was at least within a few hundred yards of their spot on the curb. She could see the driver cursing and gesturing at the cars that sped past him, while the white horse in front just kept trotting, oblivious. “This may take a while.”

“No. I’ll manage,” Joan said lightly, and reached out to squeeze his fingers.

**

“Dad! Dad!” Kevin squirmed so much he poked Joan in the side with a knee. She let out a grunt of annoyance, and set him down so he could run to Lane without injuring her again, or ruining her dress. “That took so long! Let me see the paper!”

“Here it is,” Lane was beaming from ear to ear as he showed Kevin the embossed paper. “But you did like it, didn’t you? Seeing everyone with their flags and official certificates?”

“The boring man talked a lot,” Kevin responded with a snort, and somewhere behind her, Nigel snickered. Joan rolled her eyes. Kids.

“I thought it was lovely,” she said. “And so did Nigel.”

Lane made a pleased noise. She smoothed back his lapel with one hand. The double-flag pin she’d given him this morning gleamed blue and red and white and gold against his dark suit. One American flag, one Union Jack. She had almost hugged the sales clerk when she’d found it.

_“For my favorite Anglo-American,” she’d joked, presenting Lane with the box. He’d started crying the second he opened it, and pretended it was allergies._

Nigel came up to stand next to Lane. He was trying to look cool and edgy with his too-big leather jacket and his hair hanging messy around his face, although he clearly wanted to get a look at his father’s official certificate and packet. Joan hid a smile. After pretending to be bored all morning (until Lane had disappeared and he’d started asking tons of questions), she guessed the novelty was wearing off.

“Do we have to keep wearing these?” he asked Lane, who fixed him with a look that said _you know better._

“Yes. Joan got them for all of us.”

Pinned to her dress was a worn enamel flag pin she’d had since college, while the boys got brand new ones. Nigel’s was a Union Jack.

“Mine’s heavy!” Kevin blurted out, as if determined to be included in this conversation. “It wrinkled my jacket!”

Lane was always so patient with him. “Well, here, I’m sure we can—”

“’Scuse me, sir.” A man in a photographer’s hat gestured toward them with a flashbulb camera. “Picture of you and your family?”

“Oh.” Lane looked around. “Well, yes. That—that would be wonderful.” He gestured for them all to crowd around him. “Come on, everyone.”

Joan stepped to his left side, and Nigel to his right, and as they crowded closer, Kevin tugged at the side of her dress.

“Mama! Carry me!”

“Okay.” She scooped him up with a sigh, and adjusted him on her hip as the photographer raised his camera.

“All right. Three, two, one. Everybody say—”

“Cake!” shouted Kevin with no warning, and they all started to laugh.


End file.
